


Deprogramming

by Bohemienne



Series: After Civil War [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Has Nightmares, Bucky Barnes Has PTSD, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Civil War Fix-It, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Memories, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Multi, PTSD, Past Bucky Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Past Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Pining, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Civil War (Marvel), Recovery, Red Room, Repressed Memories, Slow Burn, Therapy, Trauma, pining!bucky, sad grandpas, stucky memories, winter soldier - Freeform, winterwidow memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-06-07 17:09:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 52,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6815380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bohemienne/pseuds/Bohemienne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>** COMPLETE **</p><p>Sam Wilson has to pull Bucky out of cryosleep. Captain's orders. But before he can be of use, he has to guide Bucky through some extensive therapy to undo Hydra's brainwashing. Each word chains to a series of memories. Are the memories real, or just a horrific byproduct of his conditioning?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Activation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Will be updating weekly. starandshield.tumblr.com for more <3

**000000: Activation**

 

The white fog in his thoughts was retreating.

What had he dreamed of? Snow, maybe. Mountaintops. Wind whipping against his face. He felt it again. The scrape of frost in his lungs and the heavy thud of his heart as oxygenated blood pumped through him again. He’d been here before.

The scrape of metal shearing away and a drop—

No.

The ragged shouts of battle, the crunch of metal and energy—

No. Not this, either.

A faint beep. A pulse monitor. He tumbled forward, but was held in place by straps. Instinct made him reach out to tear the restraints away, to fend off an unseen threat—but his arm didn’t obey.

There was no arm. Not on his left.

Then it all came back.

“James Buchanan Barnes.” The medic looked up from her tablet. Her face was warm, inviting. He’d woken up to far worse. Usually there were guards, machine guns, a cold cement cell. “My name is Claire Temple. I’ve been assigned to your primary care team.”

“Claire.” He tried the name out, let it roll off his dry tongue. Not a Russian name. An unnamed relief trilled down his spine. If anything, there was something familiar in her tone. “You from New York?”

She smiled softly. She had big brown eyes, a few shades darker than her skin, and her black hair framed her face. “You catch on quick.”

“Brooklyn,” he said, by way of introduction. Winced as the sharp smell of newspapers and clink of milk bottles drifted through his memories.

“Hell’s Kitchen,” she said.

“We’re not in New York, though.”

“No.” Her smile faltered. “We’re not.”

Two aides stepped forward to ease him out of the restraints. He squeezed his right hand into a fist and watched the skin turn red. An old military trick to get the blood moving. He took a step forward, out of the cryochamber. Instantly, the aides jumped back and looked somewhere behind him.

He turned to look behind the chamber and found no less than five heavily armed Wakandan soldiers.

His nostrils flared. Same song, different verse. Swung his feet wide and crouched into a fighting stance. His missing arm was going to be a problem, but he’d make do. The IV pole would work well as an early defense, then if he could reach that office chair, use it like a battering ram—

“Mr. Barnes.” Claire’s voice wavered. “No one’s here to hurt you.”

“You don’t understand.” He worked his jaw from side to side. “I can hurt all of you.” It was coming back to him now—Tony Stark. Helmut Zemo. The surveillance tape, and countless more—piling and piling on top of one another, an avalanche of regret. _Be ready_ , something tugged inside of him. _Be ready to comply_ —

“Mr. Barnes, you came here to find a way to stay safe until we could find a cure for what Hydra did to you.” Claire took a step toward him—he sensed it in his periphery. “And your friends think they’ve found just that.”

He surveyed the guards’ faces. Only a trickle of sweat at their temples gave away their nerves. Otherwise, they were soldiers, through and through. Wasn’t much chance he could get out of this without taking a few down permanently. And he didn’t want to. Christ, how he didn’t want to.

He lowered his arm. The guards lowered the assault rifles’ barrels in return. With a curt nod to them, he turned back to face Claire.

“Thank you, Mr. Barnes.”

He pressed his lips into a thin line. “My name’s Bucky.”

“Bucky.” She smiled. “Now, I’ve seen a lot of freaky shit in the past few years, and nothing you can do or say is going to surprise me. But I can’t do this without your cooperation. Can I have that? Will you give me that?”

The itch tugged in the back of his mind. **_Ready to comply. Ready to comply._** But no, she was asking, wasn’t telling, she wanted to help, and she mentioned his friends, and Steve had promised him—

Steve.

Bucky exhaled.

Steve had promised they’d thaw him out as soon as they found a cure. Left him in the Wakandan medical facility, with the best staff in the world, best guards in the world, best-secured country in the world . . . If Steve thought he was ready to wake up, then he was ready.

Assuming Steve was still alive. Or anyone was.

“Yes,” Bucky said. “I’m ready to—” He bit down hard on his tongue. “Cooperate.”

“Great.” Claire looked down at her tablet and swiped through a few slides. “We’ll run you through a few physical assessments first, make sure you’re fully awake and there were no complications in the cryosleep. Administer some localized anesthetics around the site of amputation in case you’re feeling any lingering ill effects. Then you’ll be ready to begin.”

She started walking toward the adjoining room. It looked like a standard physical therapy center, though far sleeker and cleaner than any he’d ever seen before. A few dim memories surfaced—gymnasium mats, concrete, the stink of sweat and fear. This was shiny and plastic and very, blindingly, white.

The guards followed close behind.

“Begin what, exactly?” Bucky asked, as Claire bent over to calibrate some complicated-looking piece of equipment. The aides approached him with alcohol-doused swabs and a pair of contact monitors. His chest tightened, but he held still while they attached the contacts to his temples.

_Ready to comply_

_Ready to comply_

“Your therapy sessions.”

It wasn’t Claire speaking. He glanced toward the door, and Sam Wilson stepped through. Steve’s friend—the one with the bird costume. Bucky stood up straighter and raised his arm overhead, obedient, as the aides lifted his shirt to attach more electrodes to his chest. The cold circles of adhesive stung as they clung to the ridges of his abdomen.

“I’m sorry Steve couldn’t be here himself, but he’s a bit . . . tied up at the moment.” Sam shoved his hands in his pockets. “He and I both agree, though, that you’re ready. More importantly, that _we’re_ ready.”

The aides pulled Bucky’s shirt back down. “Ready for what?”

“For you.” Sam grimaced. “Now, I’m a certified PTSD counselor. Just one of my many talents.” He winked. “But even I’ve never tackled something quite so challenging as undoing decades of Soviet brainwashing.”

“Give me your left foot,” Claire barked. “Let me check your range of motion.”

Bucky put one foot forward and waited patiently while Claire gripped his heel and rotated his foot around his ankle. “So you haven’t exactly found a cure,” he said.

“I think we’ve got the closest thing we’re going to get.” Sam shrugged. “Between me, Wanda . . .”

“Wanda?” Bucky asked. Claire signaled for him to change feet, which he dutifully did.

“You know, the Sokovian girl? With the . . . you know.” Sam wiggled his hands and arms around like he was doing some kind of interpretive dance.

“Right.” Bucky forced himself to smile. “And the mind tricks.”

“They don’t have to be tricks.”

“Feet on the ground,” Claire said. “Arm straight out to the side, but not rigid.”

Sam circled around to Bucky’s other side to allow Claire to test his flexion. “And Claire here . . . Well, after she quit her job at Metro General in Manhattan, my friend told me she might be looking for some short-term work.”

“ _High-paying_ short-term work,” Claire corrected him with a broad grin. “I just need to get out of Manhattan for a while. And preferably soak up the beautiful scenery here in Wakanda.”

“Yeah, yeah, his highness isn’t going to shortchange anyone here.” Sam rubbed at his jaw. “But the thing is . . . we don’t have much time, and . . .”

“Oh, no.” Bucky dropped his arm. “No, no. Let me guess.”

Sam stifled a laugh. “Go right ahead.”

“Steve did something stupid,” Bucky said, “and he needs my help.”

And like that, the avalanche returned.

An alleyway off of Avenue Q, Tommy O’Malley and his band of thugs, all of them taking turns wailing on Steve and his dumb, scrawny ass. Captain Steven Rogers, picking a fight with the entirety of Hydra. Holding off countless special forces. Stopping Tony Stark.

And all with that wry grin and glint in his blue eyes, never backing down.

“See,” Sam said, “your memory isn’t so bad after all.”

Bucky’s shoulders dropped. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Claire scrolled through some vitals on her transparent tablet. “Everything’s looking solid. Within ranges I’d expect for someone of your, uh . . .” Claire looked him over, one eyebrow arched. “Um, enhanced physique and metabolism. Let me double check with the pharmacologist and we’ll get you started on your doses.”

“Thanks,” Bucky said. And closed his eyes, shaking off another flicker of memory. Dim lights flickering overhead as the watery strains of Tchaikovsky ballets filled the air. The woman counting down, one-two-three, one-two-three, and the long, graceful curve of the redhead’s back—

_—could at least recognize me—_

He jerked back. “So, um.” Turned to Sam. “How exactly is this supposed to work?”

“I’ve been reading up on your files. Everything we have access to, anyway.” He reached into the satchel slung around one shoulder, but whatever he’d been about to pull out, he thought better of it. “Seems to me, when Hydra conditioned you, they found some way to reassign some of your memories to fit some sort of . . . compliance command.”

Reassigned his memories.

 _Rusted._ Bucky’s left shoulder twitched. A phantom metal limb.

_You are to be the new fist . . ._

He squeezed his eyes shut to shove away the unwanted memories. “You don’t sound too certain,” Bucky said.

Sam drummed his fingers against the satchel. “What they did to you . . . It shouldn’t even be possible. Who knows what kind of time it took, or weird-ass alien tech they might’ve used. But I think that in a safe environment we can—return those memories to where they belong.”

The memories. The codewords—triggers—memories—inverted and warped around—

_Nine . . ._

“Pulse rate climbing,” one of the aides called out.

Bucky blinked. Felt the sting of ice against his lips. The charge of electricity dancing across his skin, his temples, worming its way inside his brain—

“No. No, I can’t do it.”

_Daybreak . . ._

He yanked at the cords connected to the electrodes and tore them away with a snarl.

Something metal clattered behind him. The click of safeties sliding off. The glowing white medical center cut through with cold black concrete. The smell of the cryotubes, that freezerburn stink that never went away.

Survive. Survive and await further instructions.

“Oh, hell, no.” Claire charged toward him.

Claire—Colonel Karpov—no. Bucky staggered back. He was in Wakanda, he was safe, he was safe, they wouldn’t wake him up unless he was safe—

She raised a long, tubed gun. “Please do not make me have to tranq your ass.”

“Bucky, I know this is hard.” Sam was in a wide stance, clutching something in one hand. “But I’m gonna need you to trust me. It’s the only way we’re going to snap you out of this.”

Bucky’s chest was heaving. But the concrete walls were falling away; the corroded taste of water in his mouth was gone. He glanced at the thing in Sam’s hand.

A red notebook, stamped with a black star.

Bucky took a step back. Claire pressed in, tranq gun trembling in her hands. “Don’t make me ask again, Mr. Barnes,” she said.

Bucky slumped forward. The darkness was gone. The words were gone. And all he felt was empty. Scooped out.

“Sam.” He lifted his head. “Steve trusts you.”

“And I trust him.” Sam grimaced. “I’m not gonna lie, man. That’s the main reason I’m here.”

Bucky laughed to himself, bitter. “Don’t blame you there.”

Claire lowered the tranq gun.

“If Steve needs my help . . . I’ll do it.” Bucky’s gaze skidded over the journal back toward Sam’s face. “But I can’t promise it’ll turn out the way you want.”

“All we can do is try.”

Bucky locked eyes with Claire. Her arms were still shaking, so he tried to make himself smile. It didn’t seem to help.

“I’m still not the weirdest thing you’ve dealt with, huh?” Bucky asked.

She let out her breath. “New York’s changed a bit since you were there last.”

“So how do we do this?”

“First, you let the poor lady give you your medicine already,” Sam said. “Then we’re ready to begin.”

_Sergeant Barnes_

“Begin, huh?”

_Sergeant Barnes, the procedure_

“With restraints, if it’ll make you feel better. With Wakandan guards, if you want them or not.” Sam gestured to the soldiers behind him. “Wanda will be there too, but she’ll only act with your permission. If we need to dig in deep.”

_The procedure is about to begin_

“Sure.” Bucky’s mouth twitched. “I—I think that’ll be fine.”

“All right. One word at a time, Buck.” Sam stepped back and motioned him toward the next room. “We can do this one word at a time.”

 _Ready to comply._


	2. Longing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout-out to the girl in the cute floral dress I saw reading this fic on the DC Metro last week! I was too shocked to say anything so I think I just kind of stared over your shoulder all bewildered-like. Sorry I'm so awkward!
> 
> Good grief, this turned out long. I have a sneaking suspicion they're going to all end up that way. Thanks for the patience, all.
> 
> For those asking about just what therapy techniques Sam means to use--we're starting with a combo of desensitization, CBT, and CTT, and will probably incorporate EMDR and others later on! Claire's handling the pharmaceutical side. I'm not going to even pretend to understand what she's doing there.
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr @starandshield (sideblog, so I'll be following back under different name)

**000001: Longing**

 

“Too tight?” Claire asked, thumping at the vibranium-reinforced cables strapped around Bucky’s remaining limbs and torso.

Bucky shook his head. His mouth was too parched to speak. All his attention was devoted to keeping his breathing stable—in, three count, out, three count, like Sam instructed.

She smiled and stepped back from the gurney. “You need anything, you just give me the sign. But, uh . . .” She looked at the cables for all the sensors trailing from him. “Try not to tear those off this time.”

“If I can reach them to tear them off,” Bucky said, “I think you’ll have bigger problems.”

Claire crossed her arms. “I can make them tighter,” she said, teeth glinting.

“That was . . . that was supposed to be a joke. Sorry, I’m not . . .” Bucky mustered a weak smile. “I’m not so great at this ‘humor’ thing anymore.”

“Deprogramming first, personality later.” Sam perched himself on the edge of the armchair in front of Bucky’s gurney. “Wanda, we good?”

Wanda sat down in the chair beside Sam, watching Bucky with a mischievous grin. “That depends on him.” She cocked her head to one side, long hair cascading over her shoulder. “How about it, Bucky?” In her accent, his name sounded thorny. Dangerous. “Will you give me permission to look inside your head? To freeze your thoughts in place, if necessary?”

Bucky swallowed. “Sure. Do whatever you need.”

He’d caught himself scanning the exits, assessing Wanda’s height and weight, looking for weak points—the long necklaces and hair perfect for yanking and tossing her out of the way. Christ. They really believed that if they unpacked ten stupid words, they could break him free of all of this.

They couldn’t undo his memories. All those faces, lined up in his crosshairs. The instinct coiled up like a viper in his muscles. Prosthetic arm or not, he was a machine, and there was no pretending he was anything but.

Maybe that’s why Steve needed him. Another fight, another endless conflict. More aliens—god, the way Steve’s face lit up, talking about how they saved New York. More killer robots. Was a time, Steve needed him to open the jar of strawberry preserves, or reach the clean glasses from the top shelf. Now . . . it was anyone’s guess.

Sam flipped through the red notebook. One, two, three. Bucky’s lungs burned with the effort of keeping his breathing normal. “Here’s how we’re going to play this. I’m gonna say a word . . . and you’re going to walk me through all the associations with that word. Whatever thoughts and feelings and memories they tagged it with—that’s what we’re gonna process.”

“Sure. Sounds real easy.” Bucky let out his breath. “But there isn’t just—there’s more than one layer there.” He smiled bitterly. “They could tell, you know, when their hold on me was starting to loosen. So they’d add another layer to it. Find newer associations, change them all around . . .”

“Then we’ll start at the top and work our way down.” Sam leaned forward, elbows propped on his knees. “Nothing you do or say is going to scare me. I can’t pretend to know what you’ve been through, but I’ve seen combat. I’ve seen hell, all right? So lay it all on me.”

Bucky nodded. Behind him, he heard the pulse rate monitor starting to climb.

“We’ve got to unpack these associations and throw away what makes them dangerous to you, all right? So don’t hold back. It’s the first step to defusing them.”

Bucky closed his eyes, then slowly opened them once more. “But I’m not sure which of them are even real.”

Wanda flicked her fingertips. Scarlet strands of light danced and tangled together in her hand. “That’s why I’m here.”

“Keep doing your breathing exercises. We’ll take this nice and slow,” Sam said.

Bucky shook his head. They had no idea what they were saying. “Listen . . . Some of these memories, they’re about people you know.”

“I’d be surprised if they weren’t,” Sam said. “But you’ve got patient confidentiality here. Right, Wanda?”

Wanda smirked. “I don’t peek inside heads and tell.”

“Then let’s get started,” Sam said.

Bucky gave the chamber one last glance. Only the central platform where they sat was illuminated; Claire stood sentry at the monitoring station somewhere behind Bucky’s angled bed with a handful of Wakandan medical technicians. He could almost forget about the dozens of guards hidden in the darkness ringing the room.

_Sergeant Barnes_

“I’m ready,” Bucky said.

_Ready to_

_Comply_

“Then close your eyes. And talk to me about what you think of . . . when you think of ‘longing.’” Sam cleared his throat. “ _Zhelaniye_.”

Bucky gasped in air, back arching, eyes flying wide open. Wisps of red stitched into his vision, pulling him forward—and the chamber fell away.

He staggered onto a cold rooftop, tar clinging to the soles of his boots. _Zhelaniye_. The threads looped around his heart and gave him a sharp pull. Longing. _Longing._ He felt the weight of his rifle slung against his back and his breath warming his face beneath his mask. _Longing_ was a distance. It was watching from afar. Feeling his heart ripped from his chest as he found a good vantage point and crouched.

_A new mission for you, soldier._

He slipped the rifle from his back and popped open the stand. Paused a moment—sensed the breeze blowing in off the Vltava river. North-northwestern wind, minimal impact. He brought his eye to the rifle’s sight.

_You’ll be accompanying one of the girls you’ve been training on her first mission._

Third floor, fifth window from the left. The curtains were drawn, though he could make out the light edging around it. Far behind him, the midnight bells of Tyn Church rang out. He slowed his breathing to their steady clang.

_She must extract information from the target. On her signal—and only on her signal—eliminate the target._

The curtains flew open.

His breathing fell out of sync. Golden light painted her soft edges and the gentle red curls that fell around her face. She wore diamonds at her throat, dripping down toward the low neck of her silken gown. The very portrait of helplessness, of feminine delicacy.

He knew better.

Her smoky gaze flicked toward the rooftop; he acknowledged her with the faintest nod, though she shouldn’t be able to see him under the mask of night. She smiled and turned away from the window, reaching behind her back for the zipper of her gown.

His stomach churned, breaking through his cool.

Wait for the signal. Wait for the signal. She laughed and bantered with the man in the suit, some Czech Party _apparatchik_ who was planning to defect. _It’ll be easy,_ she’d assured him. _I play my cards right, he’ll tell me the name of his CIA handler, the secrets he’s taking with him . . . I could make him tell me anything I want._

He’d imagined tracing her cheek with the back of his hand. His real hand. And he knew she was absolutely right.

He’d tell her anything, if he knew anything to tell.

_Longing_

Something was wrong in the apartment. He jolted back into place. The _apparatchik_ ’s face had twisted into something vulgar; he was shouting, the dull blows of his words audible even from the rooftop perch. She was holding her hands up, protesting, and he could almost hear her voice in his head— _No, you’ve got it all wrong, this is just a misunderstanding, baby, please listen to me_ —

Her hands slipped behind her head, reaching for the clasp on her fake diamond bib. The soldier slid his trigger finger into place. Found the soft, fleshy square of the _apparatchik_ ’s temple. _Come on, Natasha. Just give me the signal._

She wasn’t giving him the signal.

And before she could yank the bib loose to free the blade sheathed inside, the _apparatchik_ seized both of her hands.

The soldier’s pulse was hammering. The _apparatchik_ wrenched her hands around and back behind her back. She swung her legs around to knock him over, but he fell, pinning her in place. Too heavy for her to fend off.

The soldier lined up the shot and fired.

The bullet whizzed through the glass, struck the _apparatchik_ in the forehead, and sent him rolling away. Natasha scrambled to her feet and ripped off the bib. Crouched over the man, eyebrows drawn, screaming, shouting her questions as she pressed the hidden blade to his throat.

She was too late to get her answers.

The soldier packed up the rifle, slung it across his back, and took an effortless leap over the Prague alley below, toward the adjoining building’s lower roof. With the squeal of metal, he clutched at the roof’s ledge, then slid down toward the shattered window. Rolled himself inside.

“Who is your handler?” Natasha screamed. “God dammit, wake up!” She throttled the dead man by the collar. Tears filled her eyes. But it was no use. Half his face was missing; his brains painted the floral wallpaper opposite the window.

Natasha whirled toward the soldier and spat. “Fuck you!”

“He was going to kill you,” the soldier said flatly.

“I don’t care! I didn’t give you the goddamned signal!” She flew toward him, fists flying. “I needed answers!”

He threw his right arm up to block her. When she swung her knee up to bash at him, he calmly stepped out of the way. She sagged forward, face flushed, and dropped to her hands and knees.

“If I hadn’t shot him,” the soldier said, “you’d be dead. And we still would have failed.”

“I might as well be dead, you stupid, mindless shit.” Her back arched as she sucked down air. “Fuck! My first mission, and you have to charge in like the goddamned cavalry—”

“I was protecting you.” His voice faltered; red lines sparked at the corners of his vision. “My mission was to protect you.”

“Your mission. Please.”

He said nothing. He couldn’t stop thinking of the way she’d sounded, nestled in the eaves of the training barracks late at night, their voices muffled by the concrete all around. High above their sleeping comrades. _They’ll be sending me on my first mission soon._ He didn’t want her to go. But when he said as much, she’d laughed in his face.

“You never did know when to stop protecting the people you care about,” she muttered. “It says so right in your file.”

He blinked. “What file?”

She tilted her head up to look at him. Her mascara had left black lines carved across her cheeks. Slowly, that half-smile returned.

A sharp knock on the door. In the half-second it took for the guards to bash it in, Natasha was back on her feet, hair and makeup disheveled but otherwise perfectly in control. Colonel Karpov strode inside, flanked by his guards. He stopped before Natasha and the soldier, hands tucked behind his back, and looked them both up and down with a sneer.

A shimmer of red darted around them—there and then gone. Binding them together.

“Soldier.” Karpov turned to him. “Mission report.”

“Agent Romanova brought the target to the apartment as requested. I observed from the designated rooftop. Agent Romanova and the target conversed, and then she gave me the signal. I fired. Struck the target. Entered via the window.”

Karpov’s eyebrows raised, then he nodded and turned away. Out of the soldier’s peripheral vision, he spied Natasha watching him, her tongue running around her teeth. “Agent Romanova?”

“Target was planning to defect, all right. Unfortunately, he’s pretty terrible with _Amerikanetz_ names. All sound the same to him.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Said his handler was Josh, John, Joe, something like that. Works at the embassy. Brownish hair, average height.”

Karpov’s lip curled further. “How terribly helpful.” He glanced at the body behind them, then snapped to his guards. “Well, we kept him away from the Americans; that’s all that matters, I suppose. Send in the cleanup crew. Good work, agent.”

Natasha made a strained smile. “Thank you, comrade.”

“And contact the facility. I think the soldier is overdue for another session.” Karpov strode from the room.

Natasha’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.

_Prep him_

The red threads wound around the soldier’s throat, his hands and legs. Images flickered past, to quick for him to grasp. Sunlight and a cheering crowd; Natasha’s smile flashing from the window; the satisfying crack of a baseball bat and another home run for the Dodgers.

_Longing_

A flash of concrete barracks and the cold sting of metal. Electrostatic shocks flew across his mind. He tasted plastic, clenched between his teeth, and the salt of blood.

_Mission report. Mission report._

“Agent Romanova brought the target to the apartment as requested. But she was unsuccessful in extracting the information from him. He quickly overpowered her. She was unable to signal.” The vein along his forehead throbbed. “I made the judgment call to terminate the target.”

“That is not your call to make, soldier.”

Mechanical parts whirred; the electric nodes pressed toward his temple sparked to life again. No plastic bite this time. Nothing to stifle his screams.

“You do not judge. You calculate and act, within the parameters we have set for you. You were created to comply.”

The sparks sputtered and stopped. The soldier looked straight ahead, chest heaving. “I am—ready—to—”

“No. You are not.” Karpov cut his eyes toward his assistant and nodded. “It is time for an adjustment to your programming.”

The soldier’s jaw trembled, teeth chattering.

“ _Zhelaniye._ ” Karpov’s voice sliced through all thought, all pain, all possible sensation. “ _Zhelaniye. Zhelaniye._ ”

 

*

 

The red threads retracted and the fog cleared.

“ _Zhelaniye. Zhelaniye._ ” Sam’s voice rang through the chamber. “Dammit. Why is his pulse still high? _Zhelaniye._ ”

“There’s more.” Wanda’s voice. “Like he said, they just kept—piling the associations on—”

“Brain function is improving. Showing less stress on the hippocampus,” Claire called. “But we’re still showing elevated activity—”

“Bucky. I need you to focus on me.” Sam’s voice cut through the beeping sensors, the chatter all around. “ _Zhelaniye._ Come on, man. We aren’t done yet here, are we?”

Bucky opened his mouth, but his jaw was quaking, unable to clench around any semblance of words.

“There’s something false about that memory, Buck. Isn’t there?” Sam leaned forward. “Something they changed, or something you’re holding back.”

Bucky turned his head to the side. He couldn’t look Sam in the eye. Not about Natasha—not about anyone he knew. And, god, he knew too much already. “I don’t know. It—it feels real enough.”

“It’s incomplete. There’s edges to the story—like they cut away a chunk of his memory,” Wanda said.

“We’re seeing heightened activity in the amygdala,” Claire called.

“Gotta get the whole story, Barnes.” Sam laced his fingers together and regarded Bucky with a cool detachment. “You tried to spare Natasha. Twice. First by covering her ass when her target got the drop on her. And then by lying about it to your commander. What happened next? How’d they turn this memory against you?”

Bucky’s mouth was shaking, unable to form the words. “It was . . . it . . .” His right hand clenched into a fist, veins bulging along his forearm. The vibranium-threaded cables restraining him stretched under the new tension.

The red strands danced through his thoughts again. He let out his breath and slumped.

“It was the longest they’d gone without wiping me, at that point.” Bucky swallowed. “When they gave me the task to train the Red Room candidates, I guess they figured it was a good time to test me. See how willing I was to obey.” He bared a bitter smile. “Guess I failed the test.”

“Your personality and instincts started coming back,” Sam said. “Your will to comply was fading. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Yea, well. Hydra didn’t see it that way. And Natasha—who knows how they punished her. For going along with the lie.”

He flinched as a fresh memory stabbed through the fog. Natasha finding him in the gymnasium, face sharp with murderous rage. But he’d had no memory of why. He felt nothing for the stranger, the faceless girl swinging at him, again and again, begging him to remember, to understand just what he’d done—

_Longing._

A glass of bourbon and a moonlit symphony.

_Longing._

“Bucky,” Sam said.

 _Bucky_ , the red threads whispered. Natasha dissolved before his eyes.

“They used that memory to reinforce your conditioning,” Sam said. “But it wasn’t the first memory they used.”

Unchained melody, soft and smooth as brass. A tightness in his chest and a darkness in his pulse. Laughter all around. Toasts in five different tongues. The red strands found it all and stitched it together from the dark.

“What was the other memory?” Sam asked. “What was the first thing they used?”

A warm smile and a cold dread weighing in his gut.

“You’re safe here,” Sam said. “No one’s gonna use this knowledge against you. No judgment.”

“I can see something, but it’s unclear still,” Wanda said.

“It’s Steve.”

The red strands started to shrink back. Sam’s eyebrow darted up once, quick, but then his face was smooth once more.

“They used one of my memories of Steve, okay?” Bucky asked. The heart rate monitor trilled behind him. “He’d just pulled me out of Hydra’s torture chamber. I thought I was free, you know, that we were going to end the war together, go home—”

Sam leaned forward. “But?”

“But the serum was already in my blood.”

Sam and Wanda exchanged a look. Bucky’s jaw twitched, ready for a fight, ready to pull the plug on this whole goddamned process, this stupid exercise in humiliation. He wasn’t free. Those words had every bit of a hold on him as they ever did; his mind was a book just out of reach. He remembered everything and nothing. And what he could grasp, he wanted to cling to. Lock it away where no one else could see.

Something to call his own.

“ _Zhelaniye_ ,” Sam said. “Tell me. Everything.”

 

*

 

“Tomorrow could be it for us,” Steve said. “If we pull Zola off that train, we cripple Schmidt’s weapons production. Without his weapons, he’s just a hotheaded bully.”

“And then we take Schmidt out ourselves.” Bucky raised his glass of bourbon. “I gotta hand it to you, Steve. I always knew you had it in you—leading a bunch of bruisers and losers like me towards certain death. But being able to keep up with us? That’s something new.”

“Yeah, well, I couldn’t let you have all the fun.” Steve reached over and ruffled his hair. His fingers lingered against Bucky’s scalp, and Bucky pressed his lips together, something crackling under the surface. Their eyes met, and, clearing his throat, Steve pulled his hand away.

They both took a long drink and set their empty glasses down on the bar.

“Let’s say the war did end tomorrow,” Steve said.

Bucky lifted his head. Whatever he felt burning through him right then—it wasn’t the alcohol. That hardly seemed to touch him, these days. It wasn’t the chatter of their brothers in arms the next room over, boasting and singing along while Halloway banged out Andrews Sisters tunes on the upright. It was a longing. Bitter and hot; molten metal like the end of a just-fired gun. It was the way every muscle in his body snapped into alignment when he looked through his sniper’s scope. The aching calm that slowed his breath and dropped his heart rate down to null.

And the sour aftertaste that promised he could never go back, that something had changed inside him. That he framed everything in crosshairs, now. That the war would have no end.

_Longing_

“Would you want to go back to Brooklyn?” Steve asked. “See what we’ve missed.”

After. Was there really any after for them?

“I haven’t given it much thought.”

A lie. The cold fear of it woke him up at night, sliding like an ice cube down his spine. After the artillery fire went quiet and the war ended, Steve was still Captain America—not just some punk from Brooklyn. And Bucky—

He was the shadow, now. Blinded in Steve’s light.

“I mean, if I’m not selling bonds or cracking heads behind enemy lines . . . Maybe I can take it easy for a little while, you know? Go back to school, or—or help you open that shop like you always talked about.”

“Yeah. Or take your dame in red out dancing every night.” Bucky smiled, but the words burned like bile in his throat.

Steve laughed and looked away.

Bucky’s left hand stretched out; his fingers brushed against Steve’s uniform cuff. His mouth felt like wet cement, incapable of speech, and in the back of his mind, all he heard was that dull throb of hyperawareness. He knew every exit in the bar and every voice in the other room. He knew the tempo of Steve’s pulse, humming right along his jaw. He knew that fleck of green around the irises of Steve’s eyes.

He’d always known it. Always felt it. But everything was crisper now, his longing whetted with whatever those uniformed thugs had shot into his veins. He’d have laid down his life for Steve before—for that skinny little twerp who never backed down from a fight. But now he wanted to give him so much more. He wanted so much more, and the yearning overwhelmed him.

But he couldn’t find the words.

“It’s what you always wanted, isn’t it?” Bucky asked, mouth twisted down. “A good woman to call your own, a house in the ‘burbs with a white picket fence . . .”

Steve pulled his arm back with a wince. “I dunno about all that. I’m still Captain America, after all.”

Bucky laughed, far too hoarsely. “Yeah, well. You’re still a punk to me.”

Steve’s smile returned, spreading like the dawn. “Thank you, Buck.”

Bucky waved him off. “It’s nothing—”

“No. Listen to me. Thank you.”

Steve clamped his hand down on Bucky’s shoulder. Their eyes locked, and in the span of a blink, Bucky saw it all again: Steve, little Steve, nose bleeding and eye bruised, bouncing on his toes and gasping for breath, always ready to go again. Steve with his shield and sidearm, taking on the world. The Steve who looked at him like he _was_ the world. Steve, his lips flushed with drink and his heart so full, yet somehow he still found room for Buck—

And then there were the crosshairs. Whittling down his sight and priming his muscles for a fight. A yearning in his blood that hadn’t left him since the moment Steve pulled him from the Hydra base.

“Thank you, Buck. For always being there for me. For seeing who I really am.” Steve’s smile cracked. “I hope I do the same for you.”

Bucky looked away. _The same_ didn’t begin to cover it. But the longing was too much like a hook, and Steve’s smile was reeling him in. He could never find out what lay at that hook’s end. There would be no white picket fence waiting for them. And knowing that, in some way, made Bucky wish the war would never end.

But he lied anyway. “You do.”

 

*

 

“ _Zhelaniye._ ”

The way he felt falling, never telling Steve what he meant to him.

“ _Zhelaniye_ ,” Sam said.

A long glance that could have been more. Should have been more.

“ _Zhelaniye._ ”

Seventy years and a thousand wars. There was always a reason to wait. To talk himself out of speaking up. He learned to live with longing, to carry it around like a piece of shrapnel. Thought it had faded into background noise.

But Hydra found it.

They found everything.

The red threads looped around Bucky and Steve, then stitched the memory closed.

“Soldier?” Wanda whispered.

_Ready to compReady to Ready_

Bucky opened his eyes. Looked at her. Looked down. Couldn’t bear the questions on her face.

“Brain activity is looking good. Falling back into normal ranges,” Claire announced.

Sam snapped the red book closed. For a long minute, he said nothing, but in his silence, Bucky heard all the questions he must have. Nothing he was ready to answer just yet.

He’d confronted the memory. Wasn’t that enough? Couldn’t that be enough, for now?

“Congratulations, Barnes. You made it through Step One.” Sam stood and motioned to the medical technicians. “How about dinner and a good night’s sleep?”

Bucky opened his mouth to protest, but Claire beat him to it. “I can alter your medication,” she offered. “A nice dreamless rest.”

Bucky managed a smile as they began unclipping him from the restraints. “I’d appreciate that.”

The cables fell away, and Bucky took a shaky step onto the ground.

“Oh,” Sam said, “one more thing.”

Bucky raised his head.

“You’ve got a message waiting from Steve.”


	3. Rusted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies if this is a bit gonzo; I'm heavily medicated for a cold at the moment, which is apparently the perfect time to write torture! Also, thanks to Anythingtomakeyoustay for helping me shore up some personality quirks of pre-brainwashing Bucky. <3
> 
> Kinda feel like I deserve a medal for not having him shout "Bad news for you, sport! I'M A PATRIOT!" But I suppose it's not too late.

**0000010: Rusted**

It had taken a long time for Bucky’s sense of taste to return. He’d shovel day-old bagels foraged from the garbage into his mouth, or a corned beef sandwich given to him by a stranger, but all he tasted was the bitter rind of coolant and freezer burn from his cryo chamber. Sustenance was just another needle in his arm.

And now, after learning that he was one journal page away from becoming a killing machine all over again, after pitting Steve against his friends, even the sumptuous meal of Wakandan curried meats and soft _injera_ bread and spiced wine before him tasted like ash.

Claire crossed her arms and regarded him with an arched brow. “Come on, Barnes, you’re a genetically enhanced supersoldier. You burn, like, thirty thousand calories a day just being awake.” She titled her head toward the plate. “You’ve gotta eat something.”

Bucky winced. “Sorry. Not really hungry.”

She gave him a stern look for a moment longer, but then softened. “All right. I’ll hook up your IV when you’re ready for sleep, then.”

Bucky leaned back from the table and stared out the window of his sleeping quarters. Misty treetops surrounded their compound, and beyond the trees, he saw the jagged spines of a mountain range. He tapped one finger to the glass and it made only a dull thud. Quadruple-reinforced plating. He laughed bitterly to himself.

“What’re you doing here, Miss Temple, if you don’t mind me asking?” Bucky turned back toward her, running his hand through his hair. “Whatever it is you’re running from—it can’t be worse than me.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised.” She dropped her arms and loped toward his table, then sank into the seat opposite him. “The hospital I was working for cared more about their board members and their bottom line than the people they were supposed to be saving. So I quit.”

“That’s it? You had a disagreement with your boss, so you agreed to come help a hundred-year-old assassin unscramble his brain?” Bucky asked.

Claire laughed, a bright sound. Bucky couldn’t help but smile. “Well,” she said, “there were also the zombie vampire ninjas . . .”

“Zombie?” Bucky repeated, his mouth twisting up.

“And the psycho mind-controlling puppet master . . .”

Bucky snorted a laugh.

“Oh, and then, there’s this blind guy who likes to wear red bondage suits and get his ass kicked on rooftops.” Claire’s smile faded. “He’s loads of fun.”

“Sounds like a real cut-up,” Bucky said.

Claire stared down at the table. “Yeah, well, what can I say.” She shook her head, dark hair falling to shield her eyes. “I guess I like trying to fix broken things.”

Bucky looked away at that.

Claire cleared her throat and stood up. “You sure I can’t convince you to eat any more solid food? Because I’ve got a weakness for _injera_ , and if you don’t eat it, I will. Please. Save me from myself.”

Bucky shoved the plate away. “It’s all yours.”

“All right.” She scooped up his tray and backed toward the door. “I’ll give you some privacy. Let you watch your message from Cap—uhh, from Steve. Then I’ll stop by to administer your meds before sleep.”

“Thanks.” Bucky stayed seated while she excused herself from the suite; he didn’t bother to watch her step out into the hallway where the dozens of armed guards waited. His fingers drummed against the plate glass once more after the door hissed shut, then he stood.

Found the portable control for the vidscreen.

Sank onto the edge of his bed. Let his body sink down, down into the mattress.

Pressed play.

“Hey, Buck.” The screen flared to life, filed with Steve Rogers’s face.

A fist closed around Bucky’s heart at that voice, the sadness that weighed it down. He fumbled with the controls and paused the video.

Where was Steve? He was dressed in civilian clothes with a ballcap pulled low over his eyes. But Bucky couldn’t ID the background. Could have been metal, or tile . . . A ship? A café wall? It didn’t look like the quinjet, or anything else he would have associated with the Avengers.

But then, it wouldn’t. Buck had certainly ruined that for him.

He hit play once more.

“It’s me. Steve.”

Bucky’s mouth twitched with a smile. Like he wouldn’t know. But then his smile faded. It was all too possible.

“I imagine you’re pretty mad at me right now. Pulling you out of cryosleep without any guarantees that this would work. Asking you to take it on faith that I’ve got my reasons.”

There was a wry quirk to Steve’s mouth as he said it. Not for the first time, he wondered how it would feel to smooth that quirk away. Press his thumb against it. Trace the perfect line of Steve’s jaw.

“So . . . I’m sorry. And most of all, I’m sorry I’m not there right now. That I couldn’t be there when you woke up.”

Bucky winced. _You and me both._

“As you’ve probably guessed, I’m not exactly welcome around the Avengers compound anymore.” Steve’s eyes glittered with some unseen light. “But I’m not done trying to protect people. Sam and Wanda and me . . . and a couple other people besides . . . Well, we still see a lot of darkness in the world. And it’s our duty to clean it up.”

 _No, Steve. It’s more than just your duty._ Bucky shook his head. _It’s your goddamned reason for living._

“We’re playing it pretty safe for now, but . . . I could really use your help, Buck. It doesn’t feel right, you know. Fighting without you at my side.”

Bucky’s left shoulder twitched, a phantom limb sensation. He’d lost more than just his arm when he fell.

But with Steve—no, with _Captain America_ —it was always about the war. It gave him his purpose, sure, and gave Bucky a reason to be at his side. But like that night at the army base, Bucky’s thoughts tripped ahead to what came after. When there were no more battles left to fight. They’d been forever frozen on the edge of transition, from boys to men, from soldiers to veterans, from partners to strangers. When could they delay it no more?

Steve reached forward, as if to shut off the camera, but then sat back. His fringe of eyelashes brushed his cheeks as he glanced down, and Bucky felt that old familiar pang in his gut. Another phantom pain. Steve was silent for a moment, staring down at his hands, but then he jutted his chin out and stared defiantly into the camera.

“I’ve lost you so many times already,” Steve said.

Bucky’s eyes squeezed shut. That tremble in Steve’s tone was like an electric shock.

“When you went off to war. When Hydra captured you. When you fell from the train . . .” Steve exhaled. “And then these past few years, I keep on finding you, only to lose you all over again.”

Bucky opened his eyes to find Steve’s steely blue gaze fixed squarely on him.

“Stay with me this time, Bucky.”

Bucky bit his lower lip to keep it from trembling.

“I can’t lose you again.”

 

*

 

“ _Rzhavuy_ ,” Sam Wilson said.

Bucky’s hair, still damp from his shower, clung to his neck as he sank back against the pallet. The word pinned him to the spot and ground down on him. Because he remembered the feeling all too well. _Longing_ was just the signal word. _Rusted_ was designed to break him.

“Please,” Bucky whispered.

“ _Rzhavuy_.”

Wanda spun her scarlet mist, knitting it toward Bucky’s temple. He felt the moment it entered his mind, cutting through the throbbing bruise of _Rusted_. But it didn’t help. Nothing could help.

 _Rusted_ was pain. It was a cold cell and colder water. An arc of electricity flying across his skin. Blows that wouldn’t quit landing. He wanted to curl up, cover his head and neck, just like he had all those years ago. Still trying to understand the hunk of metal attached to his side. The one that felt everything.

“Talk to me, Bucky. Tell me what you’re feeling and seeing.” Sam leaned forward from the darkness. “ _Rzhavuy_.”

The last thing Bucky saw were the tears in the corners of Wanda’s eyes. She, too, knew what was coming.

 

*

 

“You are to be the new fist of Hydra.”

He’d wrenched himself from the operating table, limbs still fuzzy with anesthetic. To keep him unconscious—not to dull the pain. Hydra never cared about that. One scientist lay crumpled at his feet, twitching and clutching at his throat. The others, their rubber gloves glistening with blood, stood at a distance, arms raised for defense.

“Who the hell are you?” he cried. “And what is this—this thing?”

His hand was there, but not. Cold metal gleamed in the operating room lights. It felt like his hand; he could feel the air brushing over it and the tremors of discomfort skittering down his arm. But pain radiated all along his shoulder and side. It burned where metal met skin. He felt molten.

“A gift for you, soldier.” The man’s smile cut through the anesthetic fog. “But don’t worry—you will repay us. Time and time again.”

The red strands shifted and pulled him away.

He was tossed into a cage. The door slammed shut, metal echoing through the concrete bunker. The man hovering over him had to have been at least seven feet tall. He was suited up in thickly padded armor and wore a welder’s mask over his face. In one hand, he twirled a fat baton.

“Who are you?”

“Sergeant James Barnes.” Bucky spat, tasting blood. The metal arm whirred, strained, as he pushed himself to his hands and knees. “I serve in the 107th.”

“Not anymore.” The baton cracked across his spine with agonizing force. “You are a soldier. Our soldier.”

He crumpled to the concrete, but shoved himself back up. Pushed himself to standing—

Two more men stepped forward, weapons at the ready. Long, slender sticks that hissed with an electric current. “Wait. Please, wait—”

“You are no one. A soldier.”

One prod struck him in the calf; as he jerked back to dodge it, another struck against the metal arm. Pain shot through his arm and forked, lightning lapping at all his nerve endings, his muscles locking up and his jaw clenching hard on his tongue. He reared back and swung the arm around until the metal joints realigned.

“All right. I’ve had enough of your shit.”

He charged for the man to his right with the prod and coiled the metallic arm around the stick. Wrenched him forward so hard it yanked him off his feet. Sparks skittered across the metal, searing straight toward his pain sensors. He tossed the prod away, out of the man’s reach, and swung forward to strike him in the gut—

But then there were more, even more. The three became five became eight. He swung wildly, the significant weight of the arm making his punches erratic. But their armor absorbed most of the blows. They wrestled his arms back, struck him with thick bats, and always there was that current, shocking through him when he least expected it, tinging the world with too-harsh brightness—

“You are no one,” the voice echoed. Again and again.

“You are the soldier. And you will comply.”

 

*

 

They worked in shifts.

Sometimes, a beating; sometimes a spray of ice-cold water. Another electric prod pressed toward the pool of standing water that collected around his feet, singeing the hair on his chest and making him burn from inside. After too long, he’d find himself falling asleep on his feet, awake one second then lurching forward with exhaustion the next, until the next attack came.

It wasn’t an interrogation. They’d have to ask more questions for that.

“Who are you? You are the soldier.”

“I’m Sergeant Barnes,” he’d shout. Then whisper. Then rasp.

“Are you ready to comply?”

He’d slump against the iron bars, metal gears grinding in his shoulder, muscles burning with overuse. His brain cried out for sleep and his head swam. Had it been days? Weeks?

“I’m Sergeant . . . of the . . . 107th . . .”

“You are the soldier.”

He’d collapse, but there were too many hands all too willing to drag him back up again. To punch through the blood crusted at his nostrils just enough to let him breathe. To slap him awake or douse him with ice water the moment he tried to sleep.

He kept seeing a man when he’d close his eyes. Screaming and reaching out his hand. Laughing and smiling. But then they’d shock him awake again.

Cuts turned to bruises turned to something much deeper, beneath the surface. He healed so quickly, but they hurt him just as quick.

“You are the soldier.”

“I’m . . .”

Only instinct made him throw his hand up to block a blow. His heart was trying to punch out of his chest. He needed sleep.

“You are a soldier.”

He was dreaming, dreaming of that outstretched hand too far away. Everything smelled of rust and tasted metallic. Everything hurt, so really, nothing did.

“I am a soldier,” he whispered, to the ground as it rushed up to greet him.

The blows stopped. The electricity hissed and snuffed out. The gush of water from the hose tapered away.

“Are you ready to comply?”

 

*

 

It was almost as good as sleeping, a hypnotic trance. Pulsating light on the screen before him and a current running through his brain. He was chained up somewhere, some length of time, it didn’t matter anymore. The patterns on the screen drilled into his skull.

The patterns were easier. He didn’t have to fight against them. Didn’t have to form thoughts of his own. Analyze what was happening. He’d long since stopped looking for a way out.

The electrical shock brushed away the cobwebs of his mind. Emptied it out and made space. He didn’t remember anything that came before this time, and couldn’t imagine anything coming after. A numbing, comforting gray. Everything else was corroded, rusted away.

“Are you ready to comply?”

Just words. Sounds. No real meaning. There was no answer but _yes_.

 

*

 

“ _Rzhavuy. Rzhavuy._ ”

 _Rusted_ was the call to arms. Even now, Bucky felt the itch in his missing arm, waiting for what followed next. He shook his head, rattling the instinct loose.

In the cool silence of the chamber, he heard the pulse monitor creep back down.

Then realized everyone was staring at him.

Wanda’s hands were clasped over her mouth, her rings clicking together. Sam’s jaw was clenched tight as he watched Bucky with guarded eyes. Even in the darkness beyond, he could sense the tension in the guards. What had he said, what had he done?

Sam closed the notebook with shaking hands. “A-are we good?” he asked, a forced levity in his tone.

Bucky gritted his teeth. “You tell me.”

“I’m so sorry,” Wanda whispered. “I couldn’t even . . .”

“You’re still too strong.” Sam stood up. “They couldn’t break you for good.”

Bucky turned his head away. He could almost taste the blood again; feel the constellation of bruises across his skin. The chafe of the metal arm searing against his shoulder. “They got pretty damn close.”

“Maybe for a little while. Overloaded you, gave you too much shit to carry. But you never left yourself behind. It was right there, waiting for you to come back.”

“I’m not back yet.”

Sam stood right before him now, his gaze intent. “You’re Sergeant Barnes. Of the 107th.”

Bucky flinched.

“The soldier was just the mask you wore to survive.”

“Sometimes,” Bucky said. “Sometimes, yeah, it’s like I was watching myself from behind a mask. But sometimes there was nothing behind it.”

“Well, it’s gone now.” Sam rolled his shoulders back. “They lost. Your mind is still you. You’re still James Buchanan Barnes.”

“Not really.” Bucky rocked his head back against the stretcher. “I’m something in between.”

Sam sighed and turned away from him. Started to pace. Wanda had tucked her knees up under her chin and was twisting her rings around.

“ _Zhelaniye_ ,” Sam said, voice ringing through the hall.

 _Longing. Longing._ Bucky felt the old familiar tug. But shrugged it off. Steve was alive, Nat was alive, and despite that pit of yearning that opened up in his stomach at the word—

Its power was gone.

The pulse monitor spiked then dipped back down.

“ _Rzhavuy_ ,” Sam said.

The static reached for Bucky, the crackle of hungry electricity stretched out its fingers—

He waved it away.

Sam looked over Bucky’s shoulder toward Claire. “All vitals within normal ranges,” she said. “Only a minimal stress response.”

Sam smiled sadly. “Then I think you’ve been through enough today.”

 

*

 

In his room, Bucky played the message from Steve once more. The pain was like the old bruises, a part of him he’d never left behind.

“Stay with me this time, Bucky.”

 _This time._ Bucky closed his eyes and let the afterimage of Steve’s face dance on his eyelids. The light glancing off Steve’s eyelashes and the way his mouth shifted with a bittersweet memory.

He wondered if Steve was thinking about the same time that Bucky recalled.

Because Bucky knew what Steve was remembering: the memory burned into _Seventeen._ The memory that was coming up next. Heat rushed to his face with the memory, overwhelming him, gilding him with sunlight, forcing the air from his chest. It writhed inside him, a living thing, a hunger that wouldn’t be sated, and tripped him down that dark passage again.

Seventeen.

The first time they were lost.


	4. Seventeen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Love Is Just Around the Corner" - Bing Crosby https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wyk06CD4xgY
> 
> Another super long, super sad and self-loathing chapter. Sorry!

**0000011: Seventeen**

Maybe if he didn’t look at them, he could forget they were there.

(It had worked well enough for the past two years. The dozens and dozens of ghosts who stuck to the edges of his vision at night. The men with their skulls smeared on the floor, the women with their smiling red throats. Demanding answers. Wanting to know why. _Because I wasn’t strong enough_ —that was the only answer he could give. But he couldn’t say it, so he’d stare through them as they hours ticked by.)

Maybe, if he kept his eyes shut, Sam and Wanda and Claire wouldn’t hear what he had to say. If he pretended he was alone with the gentle pulse of the monitoring equipment, it would be as peaceful as his cryogenic chamber had been. A sword waiting to drop. No beginning nor end, only silence, with no future or past.

Anything was easier than what came next.

“Your brain scans are showing a little high,” Claire said, from somewhere at his shoulder. “Should I up your dosage? Help you calm down?”

Bucky unclenched his jaw, but didn’t open his eyes. “Sure. If you think it’ll help.”

 _I can’t do this_ , he told himself, for the thousandth time since the night before. And answered with _But Steve needs my help._ Back and forth, chasing his tail. He had to help Steve. He couldn’t betray Steve. No right way to turn.

The extra dose of medication flushed like coolant through his veins. His shoulders unfurled; his eyes eased open. He found Sam standing right before him, arms crossed, head bowed.

“I know you’ve been through some shit, Barnes. I know it feels like you’re living through it all over again, each and every day.” Sam glanced up. “But you’re strong enough. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t.”

That was a lie. He was here because Steve was strong enough to drag him out of his own hell. His own strength had nothing to do with it.

“Whatever’s holding you back . . . Let’s work through it together, all right? Nothing leaves this room.”

As if he was ever a thing that could be contained.

“I’m ready,” Bucky said.

Because pretending he felt a thing was always his first step toward becoming it. A tactic he’d used to protect Steve countless times—act brave, act strong enough to clean up whatever mess he’d left. Act like his rash actions had resulted in just the victory he’d wanted. And it had been a way to make the beatings stop. To silence Hydra’s countless static deaths. Hold out his hands for the shackles. No use to resist.

Sam looked unconvinced, but he nodded to Wanda, who spun her red threads.

“ _Syemnadtsat’_ ,” Sam said.

 

*

 

A cloud of red mist surrounded him, buzzing through his thoughts. The word rang all around him. _Seventeen. Seventeen._ “Sergeant Barnes, James Buchanan. Born Nineteen-seventeen, member of the one-oh-seventh . . .”

_Seventeen._

The red mist looped through his arms and dragged him forward. He went limp; his muscles wouldn’t answer his brain. Cold, damp tendrils of hair clung to his face as they dragged him across the concrete. Through the double doors. DEPARTMENT No. 17. The cryosuit chafed across his too-raw skin, and he saw it, the chair that haunted his nightmares, all the electrical currents waiting to lick at his brain and welcome him home.

He plunged into the red mist. Falling, falling. Sprawled onto his back. “I win,” a woman said. When he blinked, she was standing over him, a wry smile on her porcelain face.

Blink. It only looked like porcelain. She was nothing nearly so breakable—he’d learned that all too well.

“I’ll be graduating soon,” she said. “Sent on my first mission.”

She held a hand out to help him up. He didn’t take it. Pushed himself to his feet.

“You’ve earned it,” he said. A judgment, an opinion—he was only just starting to have those again. He’d been awake for weeks and weeks now, and in the silent moments, when no one fed him a command for every minute of every day, his thoughts started to wander.

He didn’t like the dark paths they tread.

“They’re always bragging about you,” she said. “The crazy missions you’ve pulled off.” She pulled a long drink of water from a bottle, then wiped her mouth on the back of her arm. “I want to do that, too.”

Her neck stretched long, swan-like, into the soft curve of her shoulders and down her spine. He forced himself to look away. He shouldn’t notice her for anything more than the collection of things she could do: kill, steal, lie, spy. His mission was to train her, along with the other girls: all of them with their sharp eyes and claws, but hers hid an iron will behind them. When he let himself think, he thought about that will. That it would be the first thing their commanders would want to break.

They hadn’t yet. But there was still time.

“Any secret tips you can give me about the graduation ceremony?” she asked, as she unwound the tape from her hands. “Everyone makes such a big deal about it. What do we have to do? Kill a man?”

He shrugged. “Why should I know?”

She watched him, clear eyes sparkling. “Just thought maybe you’d help me out. Because we’re friends. Right?”

A fist clenched in his gut. “Are you friends with Olga?” he asked. “With the girl you gave a bloody lip for trying to humiliate you?”

Her expression went cold. “She’s my competition.”

The chill settled down his spine. A familiar sensation, though he couldn’t place it. Something beyond the white wintry haze that shrouded his thoughts. “Then what am I?” he asked instead.

“My partner.” She tossed the tape into the trash. “I shoot, you shoot. We have each other’s backs. Right?”

He let his arms hang limp at his sides. “I don’t know if it’s always going to work like that.”

“Of course it will. That’s why we train together, isn’t it? To support each other.” She grinned, that too-young grin that looked like no one had ever truly wiped it away. “Kinda seems like a waste if not, don’t you think?”

But he’d been on too many other missions before. _Soldier. You are to accompany Agent Brillov to the rendezvous point. Allow him to make the exchange with his asset._

_And then you are to eliminate Brillov._

“We may not have a choice,” is all he said.

“I’ll always have a choice.” She slung her exercise bag over her shoulder and twiddled her fingers at him farewell. “Wait till I’m graduated. You’ll see.”

 

*

 

“ _Syemnadtsat’. Syemnadtsat.’_ ”

The red mists weren’t done with him yet. And he knew perfectly well what was coming for him: the summer of 1934.

_Love is just around the corner . . ._

Bucky’s dad was one of the few on the block who hadn’t lost his job after the crash, and the Barnes felt the weight of that guilt fact every day. The apartments that emptied out around them; the dead stares and threadbare suits on the Culver Line. People wanted to blame the bankers, the Irish, the Roosevelts, but it was always their neighbors who took the brunt of it. Too uppity in their three-piece suits. Too foreign with their chewy accents and kids named for presidents. A tense time; seventeen and Bucky already knew how to win a fight and how to avoid one. But home was a too-knotted tie pulling tight around his throat. He needed to make his own way. He needed to get out.

He needed a job and a girl and a family of his own, and Steve—Steve Rogers, with his perfect angel of a mother; Steve, who exceeded expectations every day he stayed alive—would never feel that pressure, too.

Steve thought they could stay this way forever, at each other’s side, sleeping at each other’s houses, applying for the same dishwashing and floor-sweeping jobs together. Pooling their spare change to go to the same dance halls, same nickel matinees. But they were on the brink of adulthood, and the transition, Bucky feared, would tear them apart.

He couldn’t imagine anything worse.

The wet heat slunk through the open windows of that Barnes’ apartment at night and thickened with the strains of Bing Crosby on the radio. _Love is just around the corner . . ._ Bing insisted, but it was no comfort. There was a bundle of hormones writhing under Bucky’s skin. A directionless need.

Well, not always directionless. When his attention settled, though, it settled too often on the only person in the world he trusted, he protected, he loved. But that need wouldn’t get him out of this apartment and on to his life. It wouldn’t ever land him anywhere but under even more scrutiny and hate.

So he buried it deep, like a splinter. Only let it hurt when he rubbed up against it. Much better to ignore it. Safer for everyone.

“This stinks. We should be out on the town, showin’ some broads a good time.” Bucky flopped down onto the couch cushions they’d pushed together on the living room floor. “Can you believe Mrs. Girardi stiffed me two bucks out of my pay this week? Now I can’t afford to do anything but stare at these four walls.”

“She’ll pay you back. She always does. The shop’s been hurting, too.” Steve propped his hands under his head and stared at the ceiling. “We’ll go dancing next week. You said you could get us an in at the social club on Avenue U.”

“I said I _might_.” Bucky glanced over at Steve beside him without turning his head. He’d memorized the straight triangle of Steve’s nose, his narrow sharp jaw, his slender throat. But sometimes he liked to glance at it anyway. Reassure himself his memory was right.

Steve’s knobby shoulders brushed his ears as he shrugged. “It’s okay if not, Buck. I don’t . . . I mean, you know I’m not so great at it anyway.”

“At dancing?” Bucky asked. Steve’s gaze slid toward him, and he forced himself to look up at the ceiling.

Steve laughed bitterly. “I don’t know. I haven’t gotten that far yet. I meant—I meant talking to girls at all.” Steve exhaled. “It seems so easy for you.”

“You’ve just gotta practice, is all. I got slapped a few times. You remember that gal in our Composition class—”

“The one you wrote the poem for?” Steve’s elbow nudged against Bucky’s temple. He was close, so close, two warm bodies stifled under the July heat, but Bucky wasn’t going anywhere. “Remind me again, what was it that you rhymed with ‘heavy petting’—”

Bucky swatted at him. “Like I said. You gotta mess up a few times before you get better.”

“Or maybe I want to wait for the right person.”

Steve caught Bucky’s hand. For a moment, their fingers slid together, Steve’s slender joints gliding against Bucky’s thicker ones. Their palms were sticky from the heat, but Bucky didn’t care. He didn’t want to let go. Didn’t want to wipe away the feel of Steve’s skin against his own. They glanced toward each other, heads not moving, and Bucky’s heart lodged itself in his throat.

Steve spread his fingers wide and Bucky’s hand fell away.

When Bucky opened his mouth, his voice was thick as stew. “Maybe,” he said. “But then again . . . maybe some practice wouldn’t hurt.”

_Love is just around the corner . . . whenever I’m with you._

Steve turned, now, to face him. His clear blue eyes danced with something Bucky hadn’t seen before. “What’re you suggesting, Buck?”

He should take it back. Play it off as a stupid joke. But there was a twitch at the corner of Steve’s mouth, daring him to keep going. When Steve committed, he never backed down. Why should Bucky?

“C’mon, punk.” Bucky rolled toward him. Quirked his mouth to match. His heartbeat rattled in his chest like stones in a tin can, but he forced himself to look calm. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Steve’s eyes went soft. For a moment, Bucky let himself believe this was what Steve had wanted all along.

For a moment, Bucky admitted it was what he’d wanted, too.

Then Steve’s gaze flicked down. “I don’t know. It’s just that . . .”

Bucky exhaled. His skin was too tight. This room was too small, too sweltering, and Steve was too close. “What?” he whispered.

“I want it to mean something,” Steve said. His voice sounded tiny—coming from somewhere far away.

Bucky swallowed, trying to clear the tension in his body. It didn’t work. He reached out, fingers brushing against Steve’s cheek, and cupped that thin arch of his cheekbone. Let his thumb graze across it toward Steve’s ear. Now it was Steve’s turn to exhale, warm breath gliding across Bucky’s face. He was trembling, Bucky realized. Steve was trembling.

“Who says it wouldn’t?” Bucky asked.

Steve tipped his forehead forward, and brushed his lips toward Bucky’s.

Steve’s mouth was pure silk, warm and smooth. Bucky parted his lips and darted his tongue to taste Steve’s. Sweet as honey. He worked their mouths gently together, but pulled him closer, fingers gripping around the short hairs at Steve’s neck. Steve’s hand found his waist and held tight.

Bucky’s arm slipped further, trapping Steve against him, filling himself with the taste of him, the feel of their lips combined. In case he never felt again. Could he live with that, if this was all he ever had? But he wanted more and more, he wanted anything Steve could give—

A key clicked in the lock of the front door.

Bucky shot away first and yanked the blanket over his lower body. Steve froze, but Bucky shot him a glare, then wrenched his eyes shut and faked deep sleep. The door groaned open and the heavy, uneven steps of Mr. Barnes filled the apartment. He stood over the two boys, stinking of moonshine, and grunted before Bucky heard his shoes turn and shuffle down the hall.

Bucky’s pulse was fluttering like a moth under his skin. All he wanted was to pull Steve into his arms once more, and never let him go—

But it would have to be enough.

“Bucky?” Steve whispered, after several long moments had passed. “Did you . . . did you mean what you said?”

He wanted to. So badly, he wanted to. But he could never offer Steve more than the moment he’d already stolen. Not with his dad, looming over them at all times. Not ever.

So he pretended to be fast asleep.

 

*

“ _Syemnadtsat’._ ”

The next week only proved it.

The red strands found Bucky and Steve walking down the avenue, Bucky in his three-piece suit and Steve with his best tie. A welcome breeze snaked its way off the beach and washed over Brooklyn, cutting through the heat. But Bucky barely noticed it. All week, uncertainty had wedged itself between them, and Bucky found himself unsure how he should act around Steve. He couldn’t figure out what to do with his hands—stuff them in his pockets, cross his arms. When all he really wanted was to wrap them around Steve again and pull him close to him.

Nothing tasted as good as Steve tasted. Nothing else kept him awake at night. And yet Steve stammered and stuttered and shuffled around, was restless around him, kept changing seats and finding reasons to pace. It was a ridiculous dance. Bucky knew it—maybe Steve knew, too. But he couldn’t ask. Couldn’t find the right words.

“Maybe that cute brunette’ll be there. Frankie, right? She was eyein’ you good last time.” Bucky hesitated—this’d be the moment when he’d sling his arm around Steve’s shoulder, like a worldly brother steering him onto the right course. “You liked her, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know about this, Buck. I’m not sure I feel like dancing right now.”

Bucky laughed too loud, the noise bouncing off the brick storefronts around them. “C’mon, you’ve always been game before. No reason not to right now—”

“Maybe I don’t feel like it, all right? Is that good enough reason for you?” Steve stopped and whirled on him. A stray golden lock fell across his forehead, and Bucky had to stop himself from reaching down to tuck it into place. “I’ve been doing some thinking, is all.”

“That’s Steve. Always thinkin’.” Bucky laughed again, but the falseness grated.

Steve smiled, tentative, flickering like a film projection and gone again. “Maybe I’m—looking in the wrong places, you know? Maybe I’m trying too hard, when really, I should see what’s already—”

He trailed off. Bucky frowned, and realized he’d clenched his fists in his pockets. Hoping for Steve to say what he couldn’t. Praying that he wouldn’t. He didn’t know which he’d wanted.

Steve stared over Bucky’s shoulder, toward the alley that wrapped around the back of the social club. “Hey!” Steve shouted. His narrow shoulders drew up; he clenched fists at his sides. “Hey, what’s the big idea?”

 _Not again._ Bucky’s stomach sank. Steve Rogers, off to save the day again. He spun and followed Steve into the alley’s mouth.

Three guys, shirt collars loose and sleeves rolled up, were walloping on two other poor kids, pinning them up against the brick wall. “Leave them alone!” Steve called, charging forward. He spotted, a moment before Bucky did, the crushed cardboard box two of the bullies were standing on, and reached down to yank it up. Trying to pull them off-balance. But the soggy cardboard tore away in his hands.

The lead bully—Antony, Bucky recognized, the son of the guy who ran the social club—stepped forward while his chums held their victims down. “The fuck’s wrong with you, Rogers?” A head taller even than Buck, he loomed over Steve. “You got a problem with how we run the club?”

“I’m not sure how beating up your customers makes good business sense,” Steve replied. Not a hint of backing down in his tone. Steve, stupid Steve, absurdly brave Steve. All Bucky could do was watch and admire, even as fear slithered down his back.

Antony jerked his thumb back behind him. “Found these couple of fairies neckin’ in the bathroom stalls. We don’t serve fairies.”

 _Oh, no._ Bucky clenched his jaw.

“And why is that?” Steve asked. Fists raising.

In an instant, Bucky saw two ways their lives could go. The first :fighting, always fighting, to shelter this _thing_ between them, because Steve didn’t know how to not to fight for what he believed. If Steve thought Bucky loved him—really thought they could make a life together—then he’d take on the whole world.

He’d get himself killed.

Bucky couldn’t put him through that. Because it’d never end with dumb thugs like Antony. They’d have to fight it in every whisper behind their back, every strange look when they stood too close. They’d have to fight Bucky’s dad, rum-laced and surrounded by his “shipping business” friends. Every office that wouldn’t give them a job, every trolley conductor and movie usher and elevator operator, every landlord—

It was choking him. Not for himself—he didn’t even care, how he’d suffer. But to put Steve through that, Steve, who never knew when to back down—

He had to choose the other path.

“C’mon, Steve. They probably deserve it.” he clamped down on Steve’s shoulder and tried to drag him back. “Not our fight.”

The look Steve gave him pierced straight through his heart. “But Bucky—it _is_ our fight.”

“No.” Clenched teeth. “It’s _not_.”

Limp, drained, Steve let Bucky drag him back to the street. Then shrugged him off, turned around, and headed straight home.

Bucky didn’t follow.

 

*

 

“ _Syemnadtsat’._ ”

The guilt bore down on him, washing over him like hot lead. It had taken months to screw up the courage to apologize—no, not even apologize. To turn up at Steve’s door with a dumb request, acting like nothing had ever gone wrong.

He wanted to protect Steve. By breaking his heart.

“ _Syemnadtsat.’_ ”

_Seventeen. Daybreak. Furnace—_

“Get me out of here.” Bucky’s wrist twisted as he tried to find the latch for the cables binding him in place. “Get me out. Please—I need out.”

“He’s not ready—his amygdala’s still firing like mad—”

“Get me out of here,” Bucky growled, “before I break my way out.”

Sam snapped the journal shut with a snarl. “Dammit, Barnes. You think none of us have ever hurt a friend before?”

Bucky bared his teeth. “Not someone like Steve.” He was shaking; the old instincts were hammering through him. “Not like this.”

_Daybreak. Furnace. Nine—_

“It was, what, eighty years ago? You thought you were protecting him, but you were wrong. _Syemnadtsat’._ At least you have another chance. You’re both still alive. You can tell him you’re sorry. It’s not too late.”

Bucky flexed his forearm, veins crackling beneath his skin. “ _Let me out of here._ ”

In the darkness of the chamber, he heard the slow click of safeties switching off.

“I’m asking you. Please. I need to stop.”

Wanda turned toward Sam, chewing on her lower lip. “I can’t get inside. I think we can’t do anything more today.”

Sam took a deep breath and stood. Bucky’s jaw hurt from clenching it; with every blink, he saw Steve’s face. Broken apart by Bucky’s words. Bewildered and betrayed.

There was no apologizing for what he’d done.

“Get him out of here,” Sam said at last. He glanced toward Bucky, mouth twisted. “Go. Clear your head. Hit the gym or something. But then you and I need to talk.”

_Seventeen. Daybreak._

_Ready to comply_

_Ready to comply_

Bucky forced himself to nod, steady and serene. “Whatever you say.”


	5. Daybreak

**0000100: Daybreak**

Bucky’s feet hammered against the treadmill. Fifteen miles an hour. Not good enough. He could barely feel the pinch in his muscles or the faint tickle in his chest. He turned it up to twenty. Twenty-five.

The Wakandans had set him up with his own fitness center attached to his room. To keep him away from the other patients, he knew, but he was grateful for the privacy. For the industrial-strength equipment designed to handle his beastly strength and speed. Thirty. His legs became a blur. If he ran fast enough, maybe he could outrun his own thoughts. Outrun everything.

_Seventeen. Daybreak. Furnace._

Steve’s face loomed before him, narrow chin drooping, eyes cloudy with pain. _But this_ is _our fight._ Bucky’s lungs burned. There was no _them_ , no future Bucky could see. Not that he could’ve imagined any of this. All he’d ever wanted was for Steve to be happy, Steve to be safe—and the less Bucky had to do with it, the better. The less chance for him to fuck it all up.

Thirty-five.

Some great job he’d done of that. Steve’s allies hated him—the whole world hated them. He’d lost his shield and his protection and his entire purpose for going on living in this fucked-up world of tomorrow. And now he thought that Bucky could help him? What had Bucky ever done except make things worse?

It’s why he’d lied. His golden boy appeared in his shitty little flat in Bucharest, jaw determined and face as open as a wound, and Bucky had to lie to him. One last chance to send him away and keep him safe. Bucky would never be a solution for Steve. He’d only ever make things worse.

Forty.

His arm swung wildly, unbalanced; the thick treads of his sneakers were molten against his soles. Sweat sheened his face and neck and dripped along the scar-puckered lines along his shoulder where metal bit into flesh. The treadmill swayed with each heavy thud of his feet. Smelled molten rubber and steel and gasoline and blood—

Saw their faces, eyes wide, choking on their own fear, begging for their lives—

His feet got out from under him and he pitched backward. Shot toward the far wall of the fitness room. The shock-absorbent floor drank up the blow, but he’d been going too fast; his shoulder ached, scraped raw, where he’d skidded against the padded squares. Bucky sat up with a groan, and then stayed there, knees bent, weight centered on his right arm.

“Is that the best you can do?”

Sam swam into focus, striding toward him from the far end of the room. His mouth twisted to one side as he came to a stop, looming over Bucky, and folded his arms, biceps clenching.

Bucky shrugged and tipped his head back against the wall.

“When I met Steve Rogers,” Sam said, “his ass was lapping me around the National Mall. You’ve heard of a six-minute mile? Well, he was going more like a six-mile minute.” Sam laughed to himself. “That was before he took down a corrupt government organization and crashed their helicarriers into the Potomac. With my help, but . . .”

“Yeah. And no thanks to me,” Bucky said.

“Beside the point. My point is, for someone who loves Steve as much as you do—and don’t pretend for a minute that you don’t,” Sam said, as Bucky opened his mouth to protest. “—You don’t put a lot of faith in him.”

Bucky crinkled his eyes and pulled his knees in tighter. “The hell are you talking about? I trust Steve with my life. Always have.”

“So why can’t you trust him with his own?”

Bucky regarded him for a minute, but Sam was completely serious: brows set, tiny frown. The guilt sank in like a stone. “I’m not sure I follow.” Bucky turned his head away.

“So much of what I see and hear you doing is about protecting him,” Sam said. There was a reediness in his voice that hadn’t been there a moment before. “You know he won’t stop fighting for what he believes in, so you try to keep the fights from starting. Those assholes back in Brooklyn. The United Nations. The trigger inside your own head. You’ll do everything to keep Steve safe—put your own life on the line, over and over—but you never let it be his _choice_.”

Bucky bit down on a sour retort.

 _You know me,_ Steve had said. Explosions raging around them, hundreds of feet in the air. As if it could’ve made a difference.

_You pulled me out of the river. Why?_

_To keep you alive._

Bucky closed his eyes as guilt welled in his throat.

_I hid where you couldn’t find me. Where I couldn’t hurt you ever again. I hid so you wouldn’t have to._

_Look how well_ that _turned out._

“There’s no use taking away Captain America’s freedom of choice,” Sam said. “Even if you think it’s for his own damn good. That’s kinda his whole deal.”

Bucky smiled sadly at that. “Yeah. I guess it is.” He rubbed his hand against his knee. “You must think I’m a pretty terrible person, though. For doing that to Steve. When we were kids.”

“It was a terrible thing to do, sure.” Sam raised one eyebrow. “But are you still that person?”

Bucky met his gaze with a sigh. “I don’t know who I am.”

Sam winced, but only for a second. Then he started ticking off his fingers. “Hmm, well, let’s see. You’re James Buchanan Barnes, war veteran, amputee, survivor. You’re in _damn_ fine shape for being ninety-nine years old, if I may say so myself.”

Sam nudged him in the ribs, getting another weak smile out of Bucky.

“You’re a fierce protector and defender of those you love. You’ve got some pretty high-minded principles. Bit of a guilt complex, though. Okay, maybe more like . . . massive.”

Bucky glanced down.

“Also, you’re in love with Steve Rogers. Don’t think there’s a soul alive who can really blame you there.”

Bucky let his legs slide down until they stuck straight out in front of him. “I guess I can join the club.”

Sam pointed toward the overhead speakers. “Also, Barnes, you’ve got fucking horrible taste in music. What is this industrial shit? Wumpscut? Dimmu Borgir? Seriously, man. Remind me to introduce you to James Brown one of these days.”

“I like the noise.” Bucky shrugged. _It makes it harder to think._

“Also, man. You’ve got all kinds of insider dirt on awkward teenager Steve Rogers _and_ Natasha Romanov. Do you have any idea how powerful that makes you?”

Bucky smiled for real this time. “What’ll you give me for dirt on Natasha’s Soviet pop star crushes?”

Sam rubbed his hands together. “Ooh, the possibilities are _endless_. What do you want?”

Bucky tilted his head to one side, pretending to consider it for a moment. But he knew exactly what to ask for.

“Why don’t you tell me what sort of shit Steve’s gotten himself into now?”

Sam’s smile fell. “That’s not . . . That isn’t really mine to tell.”

Bucky nodded. Of course it wasn’t.

Because Steve didn’t trust him yet, either. Not fully.

“But I’ll make you a deal,” Sam said. “Get a good night’s sleep, get through tomorrow’s session . . . and I’ll get in touch with Steve. See if maybe he feels like sharing some details with you.”

Heat crept up Bucky’s neck. He wondered if, in all those various control panels and monitors, Sam could track just how many times he’d watched that message from Steve.

And if he saw all the times Buck had tried to circumvent the router that prevented him from accessing news feeds from the outside world.

“Deal,” Bucky said.

Sam stood and held out his hand to help Bucky to his feet. Bucky took it, and with a hefty groan, Sam yanked back, pulling him up. “Christ. I thought you’d weigh _less_ than Rogers, without the arm.”

“All the sausage and potatoes in Russia,” Bucky said with a smirk.

Sam stared at him, unblinking. “Did you . . . did you really just make a joke?”

Bucky’s smile deepened as he looked back at Sam. “You know, I think I did.”

 

*

 

 _I can’t lose you again,_ Steve had said, from some phantom safehouse on the other side of the world. Steve still believed there was enough Bucky in him to lose.

Sometimes he felt it. James Buchanan Barnes lived inside his skin, a hostage in the world’s longest standoff. Bucky watched in silent terror as the Winter Soldier hunted and maimed and killed and stole. But other times, there was no other self. He was hollow. A vessel, waiting to be filled with the poison of the day. Ten words, and everything was gone but the agonizing need to obey.

If he was being honest, he preferred when it was the latter.

“Good morning,” Claire murmured as she attached the sensors to his forearm and temples. “Did you sleep well?”

“Like the dead,” Bucky said.

She pressed her lips in a straight line. “Don’t get too used to it. In a couple days, I’m going to start backing down your dosage. Your body’s forgotten how to sleep on its own. It’s too used to waiting for external forces to knock it out.”

It wasn’t the idea of sleeping that worried him. It was the dreams that would follow. Locked in all over again, awake and aware in his dream, while his body listened to someone else’s command. “Are you sure?”

“It’ll get better. Trust me,” she whispered.

Something black and shining lurked behind her eyes at those words. He couldn’t move his arm, but he stretched his fingers out, feathering them against her wrist. Their gaze met. She wasn’t afraid of him, he thought. But she was afraid of what he might say.

“Did it get better for you?” he said, words held under her breath.

She went very still, professionalism and honesty at war. Finally, she squared her shoulders and took a step back. “Better than the alternative.”

Bucky let out his breath and sank his head back into the cushion of his platform.

Sam and Wanda had been speaking in low voices, too low even for Bucky’s enhanced hearing to make out. At Claire’s signal, they turned away from each other, and Sam pulled the red notebook out of his bag. Bucky’s stomach still turned over at the sight of it. God, they had so far to go. Just the sight of it primed him, like the opening melody of a favorite song. He knew exactly the chords his mind would move through, exactly the emotions that would twist with each progression. There were so many verses left.

But it was working. Wasn’t it? He heard the melody, but it didn’t pull him in quite the same way. He could be numb. He could hollow himself out all over again.

If he never conjured up these memories again, it would be far too soon.

“ _Rassvet_ ,” Sam said. “Get comfortable, Barnes, and tell me all about what you think of when you think of _rassvet_.”

The first layer was the freshest. His thoughts scraped against it, and the rawness tore it wide open again.

 

*

 

He stood in a corridor surrounded by bodies.

Another blessedly empty episode—a machine without a hitchhiker, shooting and stabbing and tearing out throats. They were well-armed, these hired guards, and they hadn’t made it easy for him. He remembered the fight in flickers. Using one man’s body for a shield while he charged another. Threw the body. Loaded a new clip into his submachine gun.

The men guarding this concrete bunker had been ready for a lot, but they weren’t ready for him.

She slithered out of the shadows, clad it black tactical gear, red hair tucked into her balaclava. “Good work, soldier.” His spine straightened at the praise. “Stand guard. I’ll be just a minute.”

 _Stand guard._ Yes, that’s what he needed. A new command to follow. He leaned down, selected an M-16 from one of the fallen guards, checked its clip, and took up his post guarding the corridor while she disappeared into the bunker’s depths.

Out the bunker’s front door, past the access panel spitting sparks from its shattered frame, he watched the dance of white snowflakes against the inky, endless horizon. They’d cut the backup power to the security system on their approach, but he swept the yawning field. There was always the possibility of a backup silent alarm—some other warning system their schematics had left out. The symbol, split across the blast doors cleaved in two, tickled at the back of his mind. An angled arrow. STARK Industries Research Outpost. He’d been somewhere like this before. Another assignment, perhaps.

He grasped for some hint, something that might help him remember details of security protocols or anything else from the past that could be of use. But it was like digging through black silt, sliding back into place to cover whatever he’d just uncovered.

 _Stand guard._ He didn’t need context to obey. _Stand guard._

Some time later, he heard the soft crunch of her boots as she picked her way over the dead back to him.

“All right. Got what I needed.” She sidled up beside him. “Let’s get to the extraction point.”

She slung a bag she hadn’t been carrying before over her shoulder and dashed past him toward where their snowcat waited. Something in her lithe movements itched at him again. His grip on the M-16’s stock loosened, and he tilted his head. A command he was supposed to remember? Something else slipping out of his grasp?

She hopped up onto the snowmobile’s saddle, then turned toward him. “Soldier?” she called. “Sooner rather than later? Before the charges detonate, maybe?”

 _Shit._ He slung the gun around his back and climbed into the front of the snowmobile’s saddle. Diesel and exhausted washed over them as he turned the handles and kicked the beast to life.

When the plume of flames shot through the night, they were already half a mile up the mountain path.

Heavy drifts of snow blocked the entrance to the chalet—their extraction point. She set to work clearing a path and chiseled at the ice that had built up around the door, then punched in the access code. The chalet was only a shell; they stepped through the foyer and into another concrete bunker buried beneath. No chance of light, heat, or noise escaping to tip off any surveillers that the chalet was occupied.

He stood in the doorway to the main chamber of the bunker, awaiting her command.

She tossed her satchel into a safe and spun the dial, then found a half-empty bottle of vodka in the room’s freezer. Poured herself a few fingers into a smudged glass. Sank onto the stained green couch pressed up against the concrete wall. Eyes closed, glass pressed to her temple, rumpled red hair spilling over one shoulder, he felt that itch once more, tugging him toward a memory.

Her eyes flicked open, dark fringe brushing against her browbone. “Right. Sorry.” She tossed back the rest of the vodka, then stood up. “Sit, soldier.”

He glanced toward the rickety kitchen table, covered in a thousand nicks and stained from unknown meals. A question. She nodded, and sat in one of the chairs. Slowly, he eased himself into the other, the thin wood groaning beneath him.

She pulled her sidearm from its holster and set it on the table before him. “They won’t be able to pick us up until the morning,” she said.

He cocked his head to one side.

“Disassemble your gun, soldier.”

His fingers slipped around the stock. It was a simple revolver, easy to take apart and clean. He could do it in seconds. The instinct was all right there, wrapped up in his fingertips. He reached to unscrew the silencer, the first step.

“Your name is James,” she said, as he began to twist the silencer.

_My name is James._

Muscle memory. He’d done this before. He set the scope on the table.

“You were born in 1917. In Brooklyn . . .”

 _In Brooklyn . . ._ “New York,” he said, along with her, as he reached for the next piece to remove.

“You were captured—”

“I was captured by the Soviets and turned into a weapon.” He spoke along with her. Each piece of the gun was another secret spilling out. A pressure splitting apart his thoughts and flooding into the hollowness in his bones. He removed the clip from the gun’s handle, then pulled back the sliding component to release the bullet inside. “They can wipe away my thoughts, time and again.”

He set down the last bullet from the chamber. Removed the sliding component entirely.

“But I’m still here,” he said. “Under the surface.”

She watched him, leaning forward in her chair.

He set the dismantled gun down on the table and looked up at her with a weary smile. “Hello, Natasha.”

“Hello, James.”

They both stood, and he wrapped her in his arms. Nuzzled his mouth against her slender neck and breathed in the scent of her, salty with dried sweat and fragrant with shampoo. She kissed his temple, and he felt the dampness forming on her cheeks.

“Don’t cry,” he whispered. His lips pressed into her skin, over and over. “Please, don’t cry.”

“I’m sorry.” She stepped back from him and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “Every time, I’m afraid that this’ll be the time that it won’t work . . . That your muscle memory will fail you. That they’ve finally found a way to break you completely.”

“But it does work.” He cupped her face in his hands. His thumb brushed against her cheekbone—a shiver of an old memory, another face, another cheek—and he gently kissed her parted lips. “You found a way for me to come back to myself.”

“Yeah, well. I figured, if they could plant a pattern in you to snap you to their will—then surely we could build one to snap you out, as well.”

She curled her fingers around the wrist of his left arm and stroked the cold metal. Thousands of nerve sensors converted the touch and sent it shivering toward his brain. He sighed, contented, overwhelmed. It was like waking from a nightmare, every time.

But the nightmare was still alive inside him.

“Do you remember?” she asked softly. Her gaze lowered.

He remembered glimpses. Holding a man by the throat, using him as a shield. The hot stink of explosives tearing through the night. It would all come back eventually. “Not much,” he said. Only a minor lie.

“It wasn’t exciting.” A lie in return. But that was the scaffolding they needed, to carve out their safe place in the world.

He kissed her again, soft as snow, and rest his forehead against hers. “How long do we have?” he asked.

He felt her smile spreading against his mouth. “Until morning.”

He answered with nothing nearly so chaste.

 

*

 

Somewhere in the bowels of the bunker, a tumbler clicked and rolled over.

Natasha’s limbs were tangled in James’s, which were tangled in the flimsy sheets of the Soviet military-grade cot. He tried to reach over her for the gun wedged beneath their shared pillow, but the jostling pulled her from sleep, and she reached for his mouth with a whispering purr of “Go back to sleep, James” and her tiny hand curling against the muscles of his chest as if he wasn’t made of metal and psychological torture and could snap her in two—

Blinding whiteness poured from the doorway. A searchlight. Natasha jolted awake just as he froze in place. Her lower lip, still pink as a rose from his teeth and his tongue and his stubble, quaked as she searched for an excuse. Any excuse. Anything that could explain—

“Soldier.” Karpov’s voice grinded into his brain like the treads of his boots. There was a deep, burning resentment behind it. A thousand accusations, crackling like logs on the fire. “Stand up.”

James started to scramble to his feet. But he wasn’t James—he _couldn’t_ be James in front of this man. He glimpsed the dismantled pistol on the table, just out of reach. He hadn’t pieced it back together; hadn’t snapped and clicked and screwed his brain back into place just so. He was still James. And Karpov would know, he would _know_.

James removed himself from Natasha’s embrace and stood at the foot of his bed. Instinctively, his hands moved forward to cover his groin, but he forced himself to stop. The soldier had no such sense of modesty. The soldier had no sense but the sense to obey.

He clenched his teeth so hard he could hear them grinding. He needed to reassemble the gun. Make it his choice to return to the soldier.

“Mission report,” Karpov said. He folded his hands behind his back and regarded James with an expression of pure ice.

James opened his mouth. The memories were there. Somewhere beneath the tar of his brain. But the harder he tried to grasp them, the quicker they turned to mud.

Karpov’s arm swung out and struck him hard across the cheek. “Mission report, _soldat_.”

“It is my fault,” Natasha said, standing up. “We finished the mission early. I was lonely and bored, and he was like a little lost puppy, nothing to do.”

Karpov’s gaze flicked toward her.

“So I gave him the order to satisfy me. And why shouldn’t I? It’s all he’s good for. Doing whatever is required to serve the state.”

James heard the cruel curve in her smile. He didn’t need to look behind him to see it. He felt it slicing into him.

“That was beyond the scope of your assignment,” Karpov said.

“Please.” She laughed, tight-lipped. “As if your men don’t do the same.”

James clenched his stomach muscles as if guarding against a blow. No. No. She was lying. Trying to throw Karpov off-balance—

“Soldier,” Natasha said, in her velvet tone. The voice she’d used last night as they lay together, sated, sweaty, secrets flowing between them without friction. “Why don’t you assemble your gun.”

His tongue was thick as he responded. “Yes, comrade.”

He moved toward the table with lead in his limbs. Began to slot the components back together. _I am the soldier._

“Soldier, you should know better than this,” Karpov said. Disrupting his concentration. He drew up his shoulders. “There will be repercussions. For you both.”

The soldier slammed the clip into the handle. “Yes, comrade. I will obey.”

 

*

 

The red mist swallowed him up. A small mercy.

“ _Rassvet._ ”

Daybreak was the harsh light of reality cutting through the things he let himself believe in the night.

“ _Rassvet._ ”

Daybreak revealed the ugly truth beneath the lies he spun in the dark. That he could be free. That he could stay in control. That maybe, just maybe, they would make it.

Daybreak erased the starlight from Steve’s slender face, beside him on the cushions, brimming with hope and the promise of better days.

Daybreak ripped Natasha from his arms and locked him back under someone else’s control. Daybreak was the harsh flood of lights turning on in his tube and the hissing retreat of frost from his veins.

Daybreak stank of too many truths crashing down.

 

*

 

“ _Rassvet,_ ” Sam said.

Bucky opened his eyes. “I’m awake.”

Sam looked to Wanda for confirmation. She nodded, then curled up in her chair, chewing at the sleeve of her shirt. “Good. Then I’ll make good on my promise, too.”


	6. Furnace

**0000101: Furnace**

 

“You realize,” Bucky said, as Claire pulled the syringe from his arm and wiped the injection site with rubbing alcohol, “that you’re technically aiding and abetting known fugitives.”

“Am I?” She cocked one eyebrow at him. “Because that’s not how it looks to me.”

Bucky sighed and leaned back against the stack of pillows he’d piled against his headboard. “I just don’t want you to be surprised if you face any sort of . . . complications . . . when you go back to New York.”

“Well, let’s see here.” She cupped her chin in one hand. “I accepted a work visa from Wakanda, a notoriously reclusive country with no extradition treaty with the United States, to travel to the capital and conduct medical relief work of an unspecified nature. Signed a vibranium-clad non-disclosure agreement. So I go home, and there’s not a court in the world that can pry the details of my work out of my mouth. Not legally. And nor is there a damned thing they can do to make Wakanda comply to their demands.”

He shrugged. “Just seems like a whole lot of trouble, is all.”

“I’ve seen what Captain Rogers is capable of. When he took down the Chitauri a few years back, kept them from killing millions and millions of New Yorkers, versus what I hear Secretary Ross wanted to do . . .” Claire shook her head. “I’m pretty sure I’m on the right side.”

“Right. The attack on New York.” Bucky looked away. He never had pieced together the whole story of what went down. He’d still be in Hydra’s clutches then, asleep in some faraway tube . . . It was only much later that he’d glimpsed it, pieced it together as he patched up the thousands and thousands of holes inside his head. By the time he saw the footage on the news, there were plenty more crises to highlight. Ones with Steve’s ever-present shield taking center stage.

Including the crisis he’d caused. His stomach curled up at that.

“I dialed back your dosage tonight,” Claire said. She was backing away in that hesitant way of hers, not so much afraid of him as maybe afraid of disrupting his space. “There’s a chance you’ll end up dreaming tonight. Let me know, in the morning . . .”

“Sure. I’ll keep you posted.” Bucky put on his best good-patient smile for her. Compliant, easy, no trouble at all. It fit him far too well. “Thanks for your help.”

“No problem.” She headed for the door, then jumped back. “Oh. Hey, Sam.”

“How you doin’.” Sam nodded toward her, then let her slip out of Bucky’s suite before he appeared around the side of Bucky’s bed. “Hope I’m not interrupting.”

“Would it stop you if you were?”

Sam dragged a chair from the dining table to Bucky’s bedside. “Not tonight, Barnes. We need to talk.”

“I thought I was dismissed for the day,” Bucky said. He had an exciting night planned of watching Steve’s video again, searching for clues. Then trying to sleep, praying the nightmares wouldn’t come for him just yet. All the familiar faces of his victims, congregating around his bed. He was remembering so much—too much. Every intimate detail of his mission briefs. Their names, their birthdays, their favorite kinds of food. The address of their mistresses’ apartments in Riga or the way they took their coffee or the access codes to their vaults. All these useless details, pressing down on him, a static roar.

There were a million things he’d rather remember.

The rasp of Steve’s breath in the night, gasping through the wet heat of a Brooklyn July.

Natasha’s smile. Unguarded. Genuine. Reserved for him alone.

Steve’s fingers laced through his as they perched in the tree that overlooked the Dodgers game.

Sun glittering on Brighton Beach after they’d stayed out all night.

_Sergeant Barnes. 3557—_

“We need to talk about Natasha,” Sam said.

Bucky grabbed a stray pillow and clutched it to his chest. “Fine. Yes. Natasha and I were sleeping together. We were both—prisoners, in our own way, but when I was with her, I could . . . she could . . .” He swallowed down the Russian phrase he’d been about to say, because it was the closest words he had to the truth of what he was trying to convey. The fact that he had to translate it into English terrified him. “It was the only time we belonged to ourselves—was when we were each other’s.”

“Understandable. But that’s not what I mean.” Sam folded his arms. “I mean the fact that the two of you figured out some kind of way for you snap out of the brainwashing.”

Bucky winced and pulled the pillow in tighter. “Oh. That.”

“Yes. That.” Sam exhaled loudly. “You didn’t think that might have been useful information for me to know?”

“But it didn’t work,” Bucky said. His voice shattered on the last word. “It didn’t save me, in the end. Not when it mattered.”

Sam had clenched one hand into a fist; Bucky watched him force his fingers to uncurl, forced them to spread out against his knee. Every second of it stung. “You’re gonna have to explain that one.”

“Disassembling and reassembling the gun . . . She came up with that as a way for me to help me ground myself. Back when she was an active agent for the KGB, they started to get lax. They’d leave me out of cryo for longer and longer periods of time. And the longer I was out, the more the conditioning would wear off. So we figured out a shortcut to help me regain control.”

Sam nodded. “But?”

“But it didn’t take away the urge to obey that they’d programmed into me. Ten words, and it all came rushing back. If it didn’t come back fully, then a good mindwipe would always do the trick. And believe me, they did it plenty, after they found out.”

Bucky shuddered, involuntary, at the memory of the steel plates pressed up against his temple. The pain that lit him up, sparking against every nerve. He could almost smell the singed hairs on his arms and chest—

Sam cleared his throat, guiding his attention back. He always seemed to know when the memories pinched at him the most. Must have been his counselor’s instinct. Bucky supposed he should be grateful for that.

“And Natasha?” Sam asked.

Bucky shook his head. “No. That’s not my story to tell. What the KGB did to her, what they planned to do—”

“Wait.” Sam rubbed his jaw. “Wait, this was still under the KGB? But the Soviet Union fell in 1993. And you said she was seventeen when she graduated to a full agent . . . But she would’ve only been . . . jesus. Nine years old.”

Bucky scrunched up his nose. “Natasha wasn’t born in 1984.”

Sam groaned and slumped back in his chair. “I knew it. I fucking knew there had to be more she wasn’t telling us.”

“Yeah, well.” Bucky shrugged. “That’s her business.”

“I’m going to have to get in touch with her,” Sam said, his tone suddenly softer. “If she’d found a way to help you snap out of it before . . .”

“I told you,” Bucky said, his jaw tight. “It didn’t save me, in the end.”

“But it still might help,” Sam said.

Bucky chucked the pillow he’d been clutching across the room. “Natasha doesn’t want anything to do with me. Trust me on that. Letting Steve and I steal the quinjet—that’s the beginning and the end of our reconciliation. I promise you. Her ledger’s all balanced out, and I will never appear on it again.”

“You don’t know that,” Sam said.

“No. I don’t.” Bucky looked at him sideways. “I don’t know how any of this ended up. And since you won’t let me turn on the news . . .”

“The story they’re telling on the news and the real story—those are two separate things,” Sam said.

“Fine. Then give me the real version.”

“Half the world hates Steve and the other half is cheering for him,” Sam said. So matter-of-fact—because that’s how Steve was, because that’s how he’d always been. “Stark’s been able to lock down a lot of the details of what went down in Siberia, so all he’ll say is that Cap’s gone rogue, that he won’t sign the Accords, and that the Avengers—what’s left of them—are now formally under the United Nations’ jurisdiction. That Captain America is no more, and the man called Steve Rogers should be left alone to spend the rest of his days in peace. As you might imagine, that isn’t exactly Steve’s jam.”

Bucky sighed. “No. It really isn’t.”

Sam took a deep breath. Steeling himself. Bucky felt a jolt of adrenaline surge through him—whatever Sam was about to say next, it was sure to tweak at his fight or flight.

“A few weeks ago, there was an . . . _incident_.”

Bucky swore under his breath.

“Something weird that went down in New York. It was there, and then it wasn’t, and while most everyone are content to believe that it never really happened—and, wouldn’t you know it, the Avengers are encouraging that belief—there are still enough people who remember. Who could _swear_ they saw the world end.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows. “Well, seeing as we’re still sitting here . . .”

“Yeah, that’s the thing. For a couple days, you couldn’t go online without seeing millions of links to videos showing this guy just—blinking the threat out of existence.” Sam spread his hands, then snapped them shut. Like a fan closing. “Boom. Dude named Stephen Strange, according to—uh, to our source inside the Avengers compound.”

Bucky snorted. “Natasha, you mean.”

Sam smirked in response. “Yeah, well, some things never change. Based on what she told us, the Avengers approached this Strange guy at first, but when he basically laughed in Tony Stark’s face, they had to do some creative covering up. Can’t let the general public thinking there’s weird shit happening in the world that the Avengers can’t control.”

“So what’s this got to do with us?” Bucky asked. “With Steve?”

Sam dropped his head forward and gave Bucky the _look_ , one Bucky knew too well—knowing disbelief mixed with unsurprised admiration for the depth of Steve Rogers’s courage and stupidity. “Someone with that kind of power knows better than to trust it to the world’s governments—what do you think Steve Rogers is going to do?”

“So he found the guy,” Bucky said. “This Stephen Strange.”

“Oh, yeah. He found him. And then he got the real story.”

“Which is?” Bucky asked.

Sam stood up and brushed his hands on the front of his thighs. “A story for next time.” He studied Bucky for a long moment. “We’re almost halfway through your deprogramming, Barnes. You’ve been a real trooper thus far. But I’m not gonna push you more than I think you can truly handle.”

“Really? Coz you sure seem to be pushing me plenty.”

“Because I’ve got faith in you.” Sam patted his shoulder. “Anyone who can come back from the other side of seventy years of brainwashing, even if it was on and off . . . I know you can do this. I know you _want_ to do this. Honestly, that’s always been the hardest part of any counseling I’ve done. Convincing people that they’re worth it.”

Bucky worked his jaw. He wasn’t convinced—not entirely. He knew the ghosts still waiting to be buried; the memories still lodged in his brain like barbs. But he’d do it for Steve. Maybe for now, that could be enough.

So far, it seemed to be.

“And since you sucked it up and stuck with me today . . .” Sam flicked open the datapad from his pocket and punched in a few keys. “I’ll share another message for you. From Steve.”

Bucky’s heart lurched into his throat. “Wha—when did it come in?”

“Earlier today.” Sam made a few quick gestures. The glass windows, looking out at the night-wreathed jungle beyond, turned opaque, and the video appeared on the resulting surface. “I’ll leave you to it. But try to get some sleep.”

Sleep. His first night on a reduced dosage. Bucky flexed his fingers, already anticipating the ghosts who’d come to gather around his bed.

But first, at least, he got to hear Steve’s voice again.

“Thanks, Sam.” Bucky turned toward him with a weak smile. “Have a good night.”

“You too, Barnes.”

As soon as he heard the suite’s door click shut and seal itself up behind Sam, Bucky hit play.

“Hey, Buck.”

Steve’s voice was like sunshine breaking through the surface of a lake. Bucky sat up straighter, gasping for air, his focus narrowing on Steve’s face like a sniper scope. He was wearing the ballcap again, Bucky noted; sitting in the same blank space, carefully voided of any distinguishing features. But it was Steve’s unguarded expression that Bucky couldn’t stop staring at. The stubborn lift of his lower lip; the ripple in his jaw.

Something was troubling him. Steve was rattled. And Bucky couldn’t stop it—couldn’t save him from it this time.

“So I guess by now, Sam’s told you what’s going on. At least, the very basics. The rest can come later, but the truth is, Buck . . . I need your help.”

Bucky found himself nodding. But he felt it wasn’t true, not really. Steve _wanted_ his help. Wasn’t that it? He thought Bucky needed something to do.

_We’re soldiers, Steve. Forever._ Bucky’s chest ached. _We’re always looking for the next war to save us from ourselves._

“Sam says you’re making real good progress in your sessions. That he thinks what he’s doing, him and Wanda and Claire, that it’s helping you. But that most of all, that you _want_ to make progress. You want to help. And that makes the real difference.”

The smile curled toward Steve’s eyes, setting that baby blue glittering. Bucky caught himself smiling back.

“You don’t have to tell me what you all have talked about—you don’t ever have to tell me anything. I want you to know that,” Steve said.

Bucky’s smile faded. So many of his memories, the ones Hydra used against him, were about Steve. And so many were about everything they’d left unsaid. Unresolved.

Sam seemed to think the best thing to do was release their hold. And maybe the surest way to do that was to come clean to Steve. But Bucky wasn’t sure he had the gall. His gaze flicked back up toward Steve’s crystal eyes. _I love you. I’ve always loved you._

Even in his head, the words were like magnets, pushing against each other. They refused to stay put. How could he ever say them out loud?

“It’s just that I’ve been . . . thinking a lot about what you said. That you remember.” Steve winced and tilted his chin down. “I’ve got a lot of memories, too. I just . . . sometimes catch myself wondering if you and I remember the same things. If you remember me at all.”

A cry rushed up Bucky’s throat, though he held it back. _How could I forget? How could I ever forget you?_

Steve laughed on the screen, like he was embarrassed of himself. He used to turn so red, his whole face and neck shining like he was Rudolph or something, but now there was only the faintest brush of pink against his cheeks. “I’m sorry. It’s probably silly of me, I know. I just . . . I can’t stop thinking about it. This one day.”

Bucky found himself holding his breath.

“We must’ve been, like, eleven or something. Your dad had gotten us tickets to the Dodgers’ opening day. Do you remember, Buck? I think he was trying to bribe us to get out of the house as much as anything, but . . . you were so damned proud of those tickets, because you knew what the Dodgers meant to me.”

What they meant to Steve. The way his whole body was incandescent, alive, and he could hardly keep himself from shaking out of his skin on the train ride to the stadium. He was rattling off stats at eighty miles an hour, like the fastest Dodgers pitcher. And then—

Bucky’s stomach turned.

“And then those punks mugged us at the train station,” Steve said. “Took the tickets and our snack money, besides.”

_You wanted to go after them._

“I wanted to go after them, of course—you know me—but they were already lost in the crowd. You put me up on your shoulders, but I couldn’t find them. I was—well, I was a godawful brat. I know I was. Dying for a fight, dying from the injustice of it all.”

_You were never a brat._ Bucky smiled. _You were always just a righteous little shit._

“So we had no way into the stadium, and no way back home. And you know what you did? You found us a way to climb up to the fire escape of the building opposite the stadium. Smooth-talked your way around the cops trying to dissuade people from doing just that. And you got us our view of the game—better even than the tickets your dad gave us. Even coaxed the lady in the apartment next door to giving us some snacks.”

Bucky’s grin was hurting his face, now, it was so wide. He clutched the pillow close to his chest and buried his grin in its depths.

“You taught me there was always another way. So . . . thank you, Buck, for that.”

_No, Steve. That’s not what I got from that at all._ Bucky stared into the depths of Steve’s smile. _I learned that day that we balance each other out._

“Breaking from the Avengers, hunting down this Strange guy and his ge—uhh, his interesting gifts, figuring out what really happened and then un-happened in New York . . . None of this is my Plan A. Hell, waking up in this _century_ was never part of the plan, Buck. But I’m damned grateful to get to share it with you.”

Bucky’s teeth ached from clenching his jaw. _I want to share it with you._

“No matter how this plays out, I’d rather do it with you at my side. I just—I’m sorry. I’m not sure where I was going with this.” Steve looked down with a self-conscious laugh. “I guess I just wanted you to know how much it means to me that you’re willing to go through all this, too.”

_Would it make you happier or sadder to know I’m doing it for you?_

“Keep up the good work. Hopefully I’ll be seeing you real soon.”

_Soon._

Maybe, by then, he could decide whether this shared past, all these memories, were better left buried—or if Steve deserved to know them, too.

 

*

 

“We were captured outside of Azzano, Italy, in the winter of 1943.” Bucky found a spot in the darkness to focus on, somewhere above Sam’s and Wanda’s heads. “Technically, we surrendered. Schmidt’s forces had a horrible new weapon at their disposal, and it was just—tearing through our ranks. Vaporizing them.”

Wanda made an unsettled noise, but Bucky chose to ignore it. He’d already decided that he couldn’t look her in the eye. Not today. Not given what he knew he’d have to say.

“I’d gotten close with a team of Allied guys in my squadron—Falsworth, Morita, Jones, Dugan, Dernier—and the five of us, we basically made a pact. That it was better to get captured and at least give our men a snowball’s chance in hell of maybe getting rescued, or in some kind of prisoner swap, something better than that awful blue beam of death.”

“And that’s the memory?” Sam asked. “The one they used against you for furnace? _Pyech’_.”

Bucky grimaced. “No. That was only the beginning.”

 

*

 

It was clear from the start that Schmidt’s operation was no typical labor camp. They marched the 107th prisoners through row after row of cages. The first cages were the worst—the men inside were nearly skeletal, rags hanging from them with a stink like stale urine and eyes that begged for death. The deeper they moved into the bunker, though, the more meat Bucky noticed on the prisoners’ bones; he saw the glimmer of fight still left in their faces and the curled-lip determination to fight.

A progression, he realized, as they reached the very last cage—empty. They would begin as themselves. But bit by bit, Schmidt meant to wear them down. Use them all up until there was nothing left.

He exchanged a look with Falsworth, who nodded in return. They had to shield their men from that wasting, that using up. They had to do whatever they could to give their subordinates a fighting chance.

It took less than a week for Bucky to learn, though, just how impossible a task he’d set for himself.

Hydra started them in the warehouse: packing, sealing, transporting crates. An endless assembly line. Bucky lost himself in the rhythm of it, muscle memory taking over after only a few days and making it all too easy to forget the weapons he was assembling and wrapping up were meant to kill his allies and friends. Lock, stock, barrel. Lock, stock, barrel. They wouldn’t let the prisoners arm it with the firing switch—he’d checked, day one—but it was a blessing, almost, to have the choice taken from him. He didn’t have to think about rebelling. It just wasn’t an option.

Lock, stock, barrel. He could almost step outside of himself while he worked. Pretend he was someone, somewhere else. A dance hall, maybe, with a pretty girl on his arm and a hot, swingin’ beat trembling through his limbs. Lock, stock, barrel. Sweeping the drugstore floors while little Stevie ran the till. Perched on the fire escape while the sunset caught fire to the glass and steel of Manhattan to the west. Fresh seabreeze tickling his nose while the scratch of Steve’s pencil captured it all.

Lock, stock, barrel. If this was how it was going to end, then at least he had those memories. He’d always have them. His body could go through the motions, but his memories, those would live on.

But not everyone in his company could detach themselves the way he could.

He should’ve seen it earlier. Tommy Winnaker, that poor kid with the runny nose who never could knot his boots quite right, had cried himself to sleep every night since they got captured. “I gotta get back to my Annalise,” he’d say, over and over, even after Bucky gently turned his head into the floor to muffle his sobs and whispered that Annalise would want him to keep it down, would want him to stay strong.

“You keep your head down and your pain to yourself,” Bucky told him, tearing off a chunk of his breakfast ration of stale bread and passing it over to Tommy. “Think of Annalise while you work. Think of goddamned anything but what we’re doing. It’s the only way we’re going to make it through.”

But Tommy was built a little too much like Steve—stringy, rangy, better suited for a desk than the trenches and forests. And when they shifted down one cage—because the men in the cage at the front, presumably, had all died out—Tommy’s mind, too, wasn’t ready for the pain.

“ _Arbeiten Sie schneller_ ,” the guard growled at Tommy. Rifle at the ready, masked face shiny as a beetle in the harsh factory lights. He jabbed the rifle’s muzzle against Tommy’s sharp ribs. “ _Schnell! Schneller!_ ”

“He says you’re too fucking slow,” Gabe Jones muttered under his breath.

Bucky glanced sideways at the scene, but he was halfway back in Brooklyn, sipping champagne at the social club with Steve. A victory parade streaming past and celebratory tunes ringing from the rafters.

“I—I’m trying,” Tommy said. “Please, I’m going as fast as I can. But—I’m so goddamned hungry—”

“ _Schneller_!” the guard screamed.

Lock. Stock—

“Please, I can’t go any faster—”

Lock—

The guard yanked Tommy back from the line. By now, Bucky knew too well the sound of snapping bones. (What did they expect, feeding them nothing but stale bread and vegetable broth? All their bones were probably looking like swiss cheese by now.) But the sickening crack of it rang in his ears. Slammed him back into himself. And before he could stop to think, he was leaping on the guard’s back, wrestling him away from Tommy.

“Leave him the fuck alone. What the hell do you expect?”

The guard’s elbow crushed the wind out of him. Sent him reeling back. The rifle butt swung around to crack him in the jaw, but Bucky was too fast. Too used to protecting Steve. He brought his arm up to block, then as soon as the butt struck the meat of his forearm, he wrapped his hand around it and wrenched it from the guard’s grip.

Jammed the butt into his shoulder.

Aimed. Slipped his finger through the trigger.

But the other guards were too fast. They descended on him in a swarm, knocking his legs out from under him, yanking the rifle away, cracking a gauntleted fist into the back of his skull. The warehouse swirled around him as he fell. Hunger made the lights too bright and the taste of blood too salty in his mouth.

“ _Halt!_ ”

The guards paused and cast their gaze up toward the catwalk that circled the warehouse floor. Bucky blinked, sweat and harsh lights blurring his vision. A trickle of blood. It was the strange little man who watched them sometimes, the one with the rounded glasses and grotesque sneer.

“Bring that one to me.”

Bucky swore to himself. No, no. He knew little about the man’s portion of the camp—only that people disappeared into it and never came back. No. If he went there, he couldn’t protect his men. Couldn’t take the beatings for them—

But they dragged him away, and the last thing Bucky glimpsed was Falsworth and Jones watching him, expressions hollowed out like they were already writing his eulogy.

 

*

 

“ _Pyech’._ ”

Bucky’s jaw was trembling. He could feel that furnace roaring in his veins once more.

“ _Pyech’._ ”

The red strands danced through his memory.

 

*

 

They strapped him to the gurney and left him. For hours, maybe—possibly a day. An insult, really, to think he wouldn't know this tactic. Letting him sweat and think he had no other option.

Bucky had lost all his options long ago. His reason for fighting wasn’t even on the table. He had no illusions he could ever go back.

“Sergeant Barnes.” The weaselly man strode toward him at last, hands laced over his stomach, weak jaw quivering with anticipation. “You have quite the fighting spirit, do you not?”

The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. “I don’t like bullies.” They echoed in his head and ached beneath his ribs. Memories were all he had left.

“No. So you do not. You are most loyal to your men. I have seen you doing this several times. A true soldier, aren’t you?” The man smiled, slimy and gruesome. “Admirable qualities, these are.”

Bucky tried to turn his head away, but the cushioned pads kept him facing forward. He was buckled in place. “What the hell do you want?”

“I want to see what you are made of, Sergeant Barnes.”

Experimentation, then. He’d suspected as much. Back at camp, the men whispered of the horrors uncovered in liberated camps and settlements. Hitler and Hydra both—their cruelty had no depths.

“You are an accomplished soldier and loyal defender. But I want to see how much more you can be.”

He snapped his fingers and a host of medical assistants appeared, faces masked in goggles and surgical scrubs. Bucky’s muscles tensed, primed for another fight, but the restraints were too tight. He was trapped.

“Relax, Sergeant Barnes.” The weasel’s smile disappeared as a gloved hand covered Bucky’s eyes. “It is time for the procedure to begin.”

The needle bit into the soft crook of his elbow, and everything was fire and smoke and pain.

 

*

 

“ _Pyech’—_ ”

“Stop.” The red mist dissipated in an instant. “Please, stop.” Wanda stood abruptly, eyes brimming with tears.

Bucky forced himself to look away. He didn’t want her pity, or whatever it was she felt—

“Hydra wouldn’t—they didn’t try—”

“Wanda. This isn’t the time,” Sam said, an edge to his tone.

Wanda wrapped her arms around her waist and looked from Sam to Bucky. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be here.” Her nose wrinkled as she looked at Bucky. Like was another body on the slab. And maybe he was—just another lab rat in someone else’s cage. “I—I need to go.”

“Wanda, please!” Sam cried. But she stormed from the room.

Behind him, Bucky could hear his pulse monitor fluttering, still far faster than what Sam wanted. He felt that fire in his veins, scouring through his skull. The first taste of Hydra’s endless stream of torment. At the time, he couldn’t imagine it getting any worse.

He had so little imagination back then.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said. “She’s not . . . Uhh, she’s . . .”

“Hydra,” Bucky said, his throat raspy. “They experimented on her, too. Didn’t they?”

Sam clenched a fist at his side, then released it. “Yes.”

“It must be painful to hear,” Bucky said. “She doesn’t—I mean, she shouldn’t have to sit through this.”

Sam shook his head. “That isn’t it.”

“No? Then what’s the problem?” Bucky asked.

Sam exhaled loudly. “Because she chose it.”


	7. Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELP I made myself super-sad while writing this (absurdly long) chapter so I hope it makes you sad, too, dear friend! (Not really. Well, maybe a little bit.) Now's a good time to note that we're definitely past the halfway mark of this fic, but never fear--I've got big plans for what I'm going to write next.
> 
> I'm trapped in MCU fanfic hell and I don't ever want to leave.

**0000110: Nine**

 

Wanda had _chosen_ Hydra? Steve had conveniently left that information out. Bucky shook his head, a hysterical laugh bubbling in his chest. She’d chosen to have her insides ripped open and her mind scrambled and—

_Nine. Benign. Homecoming—_

Bucky growled. Everything was too tight. The restraints, the gurney, the darkness. Everything was closing in. “Are we done?” he said, through gritted teeth.

Sam was standing, looking from Bucky toward the door where Wanda had fled. He locked eyes with Claire, somewhere over Bucky’s shoulder, and nodded with a weary sigh.

“Yeah. We can be done for now.”

 

*

 

Bucky kept expecting Wanda to turn up—during dinner, during his time at the gym, during the long, dragging hours waiting to tuck himself in for sleep. But no one came. Not Sam, not Wanda, not Claire. His mind rolled over and over on what Sam had said. That she’d been a willing participant in Hydra’s cruelty. How could anyone subject themselves to that?

_Hello, Sergeant Barnes._

Arnim Zola hovered just over Bucky’s shoulder, syringe at the ready. He was always there. Watching. Jotting down notes. Bucky stared at the smooth, dark ceiling of his private suite and wondered if he’d ever really left that chair in the Hydra labor camp. If he was in the experiment still.

_How far can we push you before we break you? How far will you go to prove you are the man you believe yourself to be?_

When he’d been captured, Bucky had nothing left to fight for but his men. He harbored no illusions he’d ever go home, go back to Steve. A couple reassurances his men would be unharmed and he would’ve given Hydra everything. But then Steve, or rather, _Captain America_ had showed up—

Well. Hydra got all of him in the end.

Maybe he would’ve agreed to it, to keep Steve safe. Maybe that was the deal Wanda had made. Bucky imagined the restraints biting into his forearms again; the searing rush of serum in his veins. If they’d had a gun to Steve’s head, he would’ve been fighting to the front of the line, sleeve rolled up and arm held at the ready.

He couldn’t judge her, if she’d done much the same. If she truly believed she had no other way.

Judgment. He sighed and tried to fluff the pillow behind his head. He was in no position to judge a single damn soul.

 

*

 

He woke up screaming.

Steve had been pulling him from the medical wing. Scrawny Steve, helmet sliding around on his too-small head and his breath wheezing as he wrestled with the straps. But the world was collapsing around him and Steve was burning up, melting. His charred fingers dug at the restraints and crumbled into dust.

“We gotta go, Buck. We gotta go.”

When he turned to ash, Bucky saw the other figures standing behind him, untouched by flames. He saw the blossoms of blood on their chests and the red gashes that ran beneath their throats as they lumbered toward him. And finally he felt peace. Finally, it was time to pay.

 

*

 

“We’re going to try something a little different today.”

Sam stood before him, red notebook tucked under one arm, a dark cast beneath his eyes. Bucky supposed he wasn’t the only one who’d had a sleepless night. Still no sign of Wanda. Something about her absence pressed at the back of his mind. Maybe she thought less of him, or maybe she feared he thought less of her.

Either way, he wasn’t sure he was ready to face the memories without the safety net of her red strands to hold him in place.

“This technique is called ‘eye movement desensitization and reprocessing.’ I think, since you already have experienced using muscle memory cues to help you snap out of an episode, this might be a good next step.”

“Sounds pretty complicated,” Bucky said.

“Shouldn’t be too bad. We’ll review the imagery you’ve already associated with the keywords we’ve covered, as well as today’s word, _nine_ , and work on redirecting your attention when you hear them. No fancy technology, no mindreading, nothing of the sort. Just me snapping my fingers and being a general pain in your ass.” Sam grinned, eliciting a faint smile from Bucky, as well. “We’ll review in a minute, but first, tell me a little bit about _devyat’._ ”

_Devyat’._

Bucky sank back against the cushions. “It was . . . it was another signaling thing, you know? Part of the training they drilled into me when they were first putting me through indoctrination.” He crinkled his nose as he felt his muscles yearn to snap into position. “One of the fighting styles they taught me, _systema_. A Soviet martial arts technique.”

Sam nodded. “And what’s the significance of ‘nine’?”

“Well, there are six points on the body that you can use to put someone out of commission. Elbows, knees, neck, ankles, shoulders, and the waist.” An image shuddered through him, involuntary: his metal hand wrapped around Steve’s throat, picking him up, then gears whirring as he tossed him away. “You disable them one of three ways: either through a strike, through pressure, or through some kind of weaponry.”

His shoulders twitched. A shadow loomed in the doorway of his mind; the bars of a cage formed around him. _Not fast enough, soldier. Again. Run the drills again._

“All right. We can work with that,” Sam said. “You remember the breathing exercises I taught you?”

 _How do you think I’ve made it this far?_ Bucky thought, but only nodded. Obedient. “You got it.”

“All right. Focus on the drills, then. The images tagged to _devyat’._ ”

Bucky clenched his jaw and let his muscle fibers twitch. Punch, punch, block, punch, sweep, trip, pin, crush. Hand closing around a throat. Metal fingers digging in. Pulling, tearing—

“—and now think of running a drill. Nothing painful. Nothing more than all it has to be. You’re just running your drills. Imagine you’re sparring with me, maybe. With Natasha. Steve.”

 _That the best you got, Soldier?_ He blinked and saw Natasha’s grin, her cheek bruised, blood running from her temple. And still she came at him. _Come on. One more round. I know I can win it this time._

“Now,” Sam said. “Where do you feel the discomfort?”

 _Everywhere,_ Bucky thought.

“Own the discomfort.” Sam moved closer.

Bucky’s ribs ached as he tried to keep his breathing calm. Tried to deflect the sense of terror creeping through him as the shadow in the doorway blew his whistle and called for _yescho raz_.

A pen light in Sam’s hand flickered across Bucky’s field of vision, jerking him back to the present. “It’s okay. You’re here now. Hydra can’t touch you. Go on—embrace the memory.”

The shadow was dimmer this time. The blows softer. Slower. Bucky could feel himself anticipating their moves, ducking out of the punch’s path. Knowing the signs when his assailant was about to discharge his gun.

The light flicked over him again, pulling him out of Siberia’s depths. “Just a memory. Neither bad nor good. It’s all just a thing that happened.”

Bucky stood in an empty sparring room now. The bars had rusted away. No one watching over his shoulder. No commands to obey.

And for the first time, he decided, on his own, to sit down. Right in the middle of the training floor. Stretched his feet out in front of him. Not disobedient, exactly—but for the very first time, he wasn’t following someone else’s plan.

The light snagged his attention again. Sam was smiling, teeth dazzling from behind the pen light. “You’re doing great.”

Bucky smiled wearily and glanced down.

“Now we’re going to work our way backward, and make sure your progress is as good as we think.”

 

*

 

It must have taken hours. Working through each memory, testing for responses—the Hydra labor camp, Europe with Natasha, Brooklyn with Steve and the crush of summer heat. When Sam let Bucky out of the restraints and escorted him through the hallway back toward his suite, it was already dark outside, the distant cliffsides turned to dark masses, crouching around them, protective. Only a thin scrim of starlight lit the exterior of the medical compound. Bucky wondered, for a moment, how it would feel to be outside again. To be anywhere but here. Not that the facility wasn’t well-appointed . . . just that it was, in its own way, too like another prison cell.

“Listen . . .” Sam stopped outside the entrance to Bucky’s suite. A furrow appeared between his eyebrows as he rubbed is hands together. “There’s, um . . . dammit.” He exhaled. “I don’t know if this is the best idea, but . . .”

“But what?” Bucky asked. Sam’s behavior made him tense, and tension primed him for a fight. Another instinct he’d probably have to relearn.

Or not. Might come in handy for that magical someday time when he’d be helping Steve once more. Why did unlearning his painful memories have to be twined so closely around every instinct that made him who he was? It was almost like he wasn’t supposed to be a soldier at all, if he was truly meant to be healed.

And then who would he be?

“Well, just let it be known that this wasn’t my idea. Like, at all. But circumstances being what they are . . .” Sam exhaled and punched the access code to Bucky’s suite. “You’ve got a visitor.”

Bucky’s heart skipped a beat. _Steve?_ He charged into the suite, leaving Sam behind. His bed was in order, his viewscreen was off—then he turned toward the dining table.

Natasha lounged in his seat, helping herself to the apple on his meal tray. Red hair cascading around her shoulders. Wry grin firmly in place, though he saw the tremor behind it when she lifted her gaze to meet his.

She swallowed and set the apple down. “Hello, James.”

And with those two words, he unraveled.

 

*

 

“Don’t say it.” Bucky circled her on the sparring mat, the balls of his feet sticking to the material. “Don’t fucking tell me that you didn’t have a choice.”

Natasha ducked smoothly to avoid his wild swing. “Fine, so I won’t say it. But I didn’t have one.” She grinned and dodged the other way as his arm swung back. “Not really.”

“You think Steve is some kind of criminal?” he asked. “That he deserves to be punished? Smeared? Fuck you. And Wanda? Sam? Did they deserve that shit, too?”

She dropped to a crouch and swept her leg around. Bucky hopped from one foot to the other, narrowly avoiding her trip, but as he landed, he forgot that his balance was off. No hundred-pound metal arm to serve as a counterweight. He tipped to the left, with no arm to catch himself. Tried to spin around—

Natasha rushed underneath him to prop him back up. “Easy there, Grandpa,” she said, though there was no malice in it.

Bucky answered by wrapping his good arm around her waist and flipping her over his back.

Natasha groaned. “Okay. I guess I deserved that.” She bounced back to her feet. “But you’ve got to understand. Not signing the accords—that was never a real choice. If I refused to sign, then all they’d do would be cut me out of the loop. That’s not a protest vote. That’s throwing away my only chance to keep an eye on things.”

“I don’t give a shit about the accords,” Bucky said. Rolled his shoulder and cocked his fist. “You turned on Steve.”

“Like hell I did. It was the best shot I had at keeping Steve safe. If you had been in my shoes, you would’ve seen that. You’d have done the same thing.”

Hurt Steve to protect him.

Bucky pulled back the punch he’d been about to throw. Natasha swung herself up, aiming for his shoulders, and got his head in a grapple. Pulled him around and down, flat on his ass, onto the mat. Then she flipped back around to her feet.

“And this was all before I knew that you were going to get dragged into this. Once they started plastering your mug shot all over international news networks . . .”

She lowered her arms with a sigh.

“That’s when I really knew I had no choice.”

Bucky pulled himself to sitting as Natasha dropped to the mat beside him. He was sweating more than he would have liked. Just out of practice, he told himself; he’d found himself pulling every punch and kick, having to mentally step himself through every part of what used to be instinct. What if Sam’s therapy really was conditioning him out of being a fighter?

If he couldn’t be a soldier, then what was left for him?

His hand shot out and snatched her wrist, the one connected to the hand she’d been raising to his face. Wrist. One of the six levers. It would be so easy to crush those fine bones, even with his normal hand; he remembered times when he’d dreamed of doing just that. When he was the soldier. Remembered the way fear opened up on her face like a flower blooming. Like it was starting to do now.

Maybe she deserved to fear him, still. He’d suffered enough for her—enough to fill three lifetimes. When did she pay for what she’d done? For everything she’d let happen to him while she stood by and watched—while she got away free?

“James,” she whispered. Voice taut. Mouth rounded. How many nights had he dreamed of that mouth, that final thing he saw, issuing a command to him, before the soldier reached out and consumed him again?

He dropped her hand.

“Please,” he said. “It’s Bucky.”

“Bucky.” Her gaze locked onto his. He felt exposed—stripped down before her, like a shaking, scared dog awaiting its master’s command. “Bucky, please, I need you to understand.”

“I understand perfectly. You picked the side you thought would win.”

“I picked the side where I thought I could make the most difference,” she said. Her tone was steady, but he’d heard her use the same voice to tell the most outrageous lies. “I’ve been on the wrong side of the men in charge before, and believe me, I know how useless it can be. There was no way Steve was going to win this thing. Not with the entire world united against the Avengers. I’d rather have my finger on the pulse of the oversight committee. I can actually make a difference there.”

“Good ol’ Natasha,” he said. “She’s always got a plan to watch her own back.”

“And yours. And Steve’s. And Sam’s, and Wanda’s, and—and Clint’s.” Finally, a hairline fracture in her mask of calm. “I can help you all so much more from Tony’s side than I ever could from yours.”

Bucky shrugged his shoulders and looked away.

“Come on. If I weren’t really helping you—do you think you’d be safe here right now?”

“Is that a threat?” Bucky asked, voice gravelly.

“No—no, Bucky. Come on. I just meant . . .”

“Do you even know what they did to me when you left?” Bucky asked.

She drew back from him. “I read Tony’s report—the classified version—”

“Not Stark. God, I don’t give a shit about Stark.” He buried his face in his hand. “I’m talking about the KGB, Tash. They knew I’d helped you. How could they not?”

“Jame—Bucky—” Her expression was still wide open, but he wasn’t falling for it. Not ever again. “We had a plan. You were going to go straight back to the vault, wipe the memory away. Make it look like I’d forced you there as part of my escape.”

Bucky’s jaw worked. In his mind, he heard the click of the metal clamps sealing around his arms. Felt the panels press against his temple, the electricity inside churning, hungry—

“Bucky.” She was crouched in front of him, hands on his shoulders. “Bucky. Tell me you followed the plan.”

He shrank back from her. “They would have punished me either way. Even if I’d wiped myself, I’d have been punished for being weak. For letting a little girl overpower me.”

“Tell me you wiped yourself. Like you were supposed to do.” She released him, eyes searching, brows furrowing, like she could shield herself from the truth. “Bucky, please—”

“I wasn’t ready to let go of my memories of you.”

She fell back from him, one hand on her mouth. “Oh, god.”

“You were leaving me. And good for you—you deserved to find a way out. I was happy to help. But being with you—” He swallowed. “It was the only thing keeping me alive, in those days. And I just couldn’t bring myself to erase it. Not yet.”

He pushed himself to the feet. Couldn’t bear to look at her as she worked through whatever she was feeling. It wasn’t his job to take away her guilt, not anymore. He’d done more than enough.

He’d paid for it, time and again. He was strong, yes. But Hydra knew ways to hurt him beyond mere physical pain.

“What did they do?” she whispered.

Every week, a new girl dragged into his cell, hood over her head. _We have captured a defector,_ Karpov would say, and brush the girl’s red hair over her shoulder. _You will do the honors of executing her._

Every week, without fail, he would comply. Knowing he was supposed to be paying for something, but never quite remembering what or why.

And then: _I think perhaps some new reconditioning is in order, Soldier. It has been such a long time, after all. Our methods have vastly improved._

But he couldn’t, wouldn’t say all this out loud. “I’m gonna go rinse off,” Bucky said, and left the fitness room.

 

*

 

In his suite’s bathroom, he eased the soft rubber and foam cap for his severed limb away and tugged the waterproof cover into place. It was designed to be easily accomplished with one hand, but now, he found him struggling with it. He flicked the water on to its hottest setting, then stripped off his sweat pants and white tank top. Ran his fingers through his hair without looking in the mirror. Knew damn well what he’d see. A stranger. A soldier who’d lost his war.

He stood under the water and let the droplets pound against his back, searing, melting him away.

Was he angry at Natasha? He didn’t even know. It was no use resenting her—far easier to resent the awful situation they’d both been forced into. She was a victim in her own way, and any ill will he held toward her was really just him hating himself for not having the strength she had to turn it to her advantage. He could have— _should_ have—been as ruthless as her. But she was a survivor, and he was a loyal hound. Isn’t that what Zola had said to him, back when this all began? That he was so loyal to his comrades. It made him the perfect soldier.

The perfect weapon, obedient to the last.

And now here he was, ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death once more. If he hadn’t lost his edge. If he could hold it together around Steve. Jesus. If he fell to pieces around Natasha this easily, then how the hell would he ever survive with Steve back in his life?

A knock on the glass. Through the fog, he saw Natasha’s shape, her red hair. “Can I join you?” she asked softly.

He clenched his right hand into a fist and pressed his knuckles against the tiled wall. Yes, no, it didn’t fucking matter anymore. He drew a ragged breath, then cracked the glass door for her.

“Thanks.”

She slipped inside, all creamy skin and bright hair and shy eyes.

Showering together, eating together, sleeping together—these were once the finest luxuries he could afford, and he would hoard them jealously. It would be easy to think they’d slipped back into old times, just because he was himself and she was _here_ and looking at him the same way—

“No expectations.” She rest her fingertips against his chest, looking up at him. “I know it’s not like old times. I’ve just . . . missed you, is all.”

He cupped his hand around the back of her head, cradling her. No, not like old times. Not overcome with the urge to kiss her, like he was kissing life itself.

“I’ve missed you, too,” he said. And meant it.

Her hand slid down his chest and grazed the hard ridges of his abdomen. “I know we—that what we _had_ , well—”

“No. Don’t.” He took a step back, under the showerhead, water rushing into his eyes, and she let her hand fall away. “What we had was perfect. It was exactly what we wanted and needed, then.”

“You’re right.” She smiled. “You understand.”

He reached behind her for the shampoo dispenser and pressed the lever. With a handful of shampoo, he started to work the lather into her hair. She closed her eyes and tipped her head back, smiling like a cat as his fingers worked into her hair.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

He smiled back at her, and the muscles in his face ached less than usual.

She nudged him aside so she could rinse the lather from her hair. Bucky watched the way her hair curled down the slope of her back. He’d spent a lifetime watching her back, whether it was sitting quietly in the shadows while she trained, following her into a hail of gunfire, or one last look as she slipped out of the compound and disappeared into the night. Tentatively, he curled his fingers around her shoulder. Finding comfort in its familiar shape.

Natasha turned back toward him, lashes damp against her cheeks, lips dewy.

So easy to fall back into a familiar routine. What had once been his only safe haven. But they both deserved better, now.

“I loved you,” she said softly. “The circumstances didn’t make it any less real.”

He cupped her cheek. “I loved you, too.”

She rose on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his lips, soft as silk. He answered, mouth tightening against hers, but didn’t deepen the kiss. She eased back down and lowered her head with a faint laugh.

He mussed her hair and reached for the door handle. “I’ll be outside.”

 

*

 

After her shower, Natasha pulled on a fresh tank top and flannel sleeping pants and climbed onto his mattress beside him, but then paused, halfway through pulling back the sheets. “Is—is this okay?”

Bucky nodded. He’d been facing the prospect of another night with a reduced dosage of Claire’s magic medication, anyway.

Natasha sank into bed beside him, lying on her back, and didn’t protest as wrapped his arm around her. “You’ve been having nightmares,” she said softly.

He hesitated for a moment, but then nodded against her shoulder.

“I still have them, too.”

“You were smart to get away when you did,” he said. “Yes, I felt hurt by you at the time. Yes, they punished me . . . but it was worth it, for you.”

“No. Don’t say that.” She swallowed. “It isn’t your fault. Your mind wasn’t your own. If it had been, you’d have gone with me. Don’t blame yourself.”

He pressed his nose against her shoulder and tried to quiet the dozens of voices screaming inside him, insisting that it was _exactly_ his fault.

“Soooo.” She reached for the vidscreen controls on the nightstand. “Sam will kill me if he finds out I showed you this, but . . . I think you deserve to know.”

The screen sparked to life as she punched in a few commands. An iron band tightened around Bucky’s chest. Something about Steve’s latest project? Or something—oh, god. Something about himself.

“This ran on CNN a couple weeks back. I don’t know what Sam and Steve told you, but . . . well, there was some ugly press going around after you were blamed for the Vienna bombings.” She bit her lower lip, and watched him, maybe expecting some kind of reaction. But he made none. “Even though you were cleared of that charge, a lot of people wanted you charged as a war criminal, raised a big stink about it in Congress, yadda yadda. But then this happened.”

The broadcast cut in mid-stream as a perky blonde reporter swung toward the camera. “And now for our War Stories segment. You know him as the Winter Soldier, the wrongly accused James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes. But according to some, he’s also . . . an American hero.” Two images flashed on the screen—one of Sergeant Barnes in full military dress from the day he shipped out to the front; another, a mug shot from his brief incarceration at the UN detention facility in Berlin. “The longest prisoner of war in American history, he’s survived torture, abuse, brainwashing and more at the hands of Hydra and the KGB. And many are calling for President Ellis to recognizes Barnes’ service and treat him as the hero they say he is. Let’s take a closer look.”

A series of documents flashed on the screen—grainy photographs, typewritten pages, and more.

“An Anonymous-affiliated group of hackers working under the banner #OpWintersHeart released over twenty gigs of data on the Internet yesterday detailing seven decades of Hydra’s use of the man they called the Winter Soldier. I should note that most of this data is brand-new, never-before-seen documentation that appears to have been recently digitized from the KGB’s own records—none of this information appeared in the leaked SHIELD and Hydra documents we saw a few years ago. Brainwashing and conditioning—it reads like something out of a science fiction novel, but if you look through the evidence, it’s awfully hard to argue that Sergeant Barnes had any idea what he was being forced to do.”

Bucky turned toward Natasha. “Natasha—did you—”

“No,” she said. “I swear. I wouldn’t do that to you. But—”

The reporter leaned toward the camera, eager. “While no one in the beleaguered Avengers would go on the record to confirm or deny any of the released information, we did communicate with a source inside the Avengers, speaking on the condition of strict confidentiality.”

“Bucky Barnes fought for his life every single day,” the robotic voiceover read. “He never stopped searching for a way to break out of his conditioning, even though they’d find a way to wipe him time and time again. There was a good man inside him, fighting desperately to get out, and it’s that good man who helped Captain Rogers stop the battle over the Potomac and who was trying to rebuild his life in Bucharest. He deserves a pardon from President Ellis and the Congressional Medal of Honor. He deserves to be free.”

“I helped Steve stop the battle over the Potomac?” Bucky asked, grinning in spite of himself.

“Okay, so I took some liberties.”

“Stark must’ve given you holy hell over this,” Bucky said.

She shook her head. “It was the damnedest thing. While all this was going on, we were on a mission, deep cover, no communication with the outside world . . . I dunno how the reporter got that clip.” Natasha winked.

“You were always scarily good at plausible deniability.”

“And what does Captain America himself have to say?” the reporter asked. “While we were unsuccessful trying to track him down to comment on #OpWintersHeart, we do have this clip from an interview a few years back commenting on his undying admiration and brotherly love for the man he knew as Sergeant Barnes.”

Steve, in full red, white, and blue regalia, appeared on the screen, his smile dazzling and his blonde hair swept just so and—

Bucky must have made a noise, because Natasha clung to him tighter and ran her fingers along his arm, soothing.

“Bucky was the best soldier I ever met. Loyal as hell to his troops—he’d do anything for me and the Howling Commandos. But more than that, he was my best friend. I could—and did—trust him with my life, time and again.” Steve shook his head and cast his gaze downward, blocking his eyes from the camera’s probe. “It never seemed right to me, that he didn’t make it home from the war. If anyone deserved a long and quiet life after everything we’d been through, it was Buck.”

“Oh, yeah,” Natasha said, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “Just brotherly love.”

“Shut up.” Bucky’s face flushed.

“The #OpWintersHeart proponents are pressuring Congress to grant an official pardon to Barnes, absolving him of any war crimes he committed under Hydra’s influence, and granting him the Congressional Medal of Honor and Purple Heart medals for his service and sacrifice. They say there’s already some precedent in the aftermath of the New York attacks of 2012, when several people fell victim to the mind control influence of the Norse god Loki who masterminded the attacks. The documents they’ve released paint a compelling picture, but we’d like to hear from you—Tweet us your thoughts and we’ll—”

Natasha shut the video off.

“They got over twenty million responses,” Natasha said. “Twenty _million_.”

Bucky closed his eyes. “It’s not anyone’s business but my own.”

“Just thought you’d like to know, is all. A lot of people want to see you succeed. They just want you to be all right.”

“They care about me because I was Captain America’s friend, that’s all.” Bucky shrugged. “It doesn’t change anything. What I did.”

“Twenty million people want you to understand that it was the Winter Soldier who did those things. Not you.” She drew a slow circle against his arm. “Kinda hard to think they don’t have a point.”

“And what do you think?” he asked. The words came from somewhere far away, but he was dying to know. Once upon a time, Natasha’s opinion had been the only one that ever mattered to him. Back when he didn’t know the one he really cared about was buried under thirty feet of ice.

“I think you’re too hard on yourself. Always have been.” She glanced up at him from beneath her lashes. “And that you’d—pardon the expression—chop off your own arm if it meant protecting Steve.”

Bucky managed a weak laugh. “Yeah, I guess I would.”

“You still love him, don’t you?” she said, after a long minute.

Bucky raised one eyebrow. “Still?”

“Don’t be coy, James. I could always read you like a book.”

He decided to let the name issue stand. “It’s a little different now, knowing he’s alive. And being in full—at least, almost full—control of myself.”

“‘Brotherly love’ is what Steve and I have. Had,” she amended, sounding a touch sour. “What you and Steve so obviously feel for each other . . . that’s something else entirely.”

Bucky pressed his lips into a line and didn’t say anything. Just listened to their breathing; felt the subtle rise and fall of Natasha’s ribs as they curled together.

“So are you going to tell him?” she asked.

Bucky frowned and tilted his chin down to look at her. “Tell him what?”

“Tell Steve that you love him.”

He felt the now-familiar spike in his heart rate. Even though he wasn’t hooked up to any machine right now, he imagined the warning beep of Claire’s monitor going off. “I don’t . . . I don’t have any right.”

“James. Bucky.” She shook her head. With a lazy flick of her hand, she dimmed the suite’s lights. “There isn’t a soul in this world who has more right to be in love with Steve Rogers than you.”

Bucky tried to imagine how that conversation would go. Tried to envision the way Steve’s eyes would crinkle and his lips curl back, embarrassed, maybe even a little offended. _Look, Buck, I know that one time back in the ‘30s, but you can’t still think—_

No, it was stupid. And even if it wasn’t, it could never be. Steve Rogers was an angel, a saint.

And he was a war criminal with a brain like Swiss cheese.

Natasha’s breathing shallowed out; she’d fallen asleep. Bucky pressed a soft kiss to the crown of her head, leaned back, and stared up at the ceiling. If the ghosts came for him tonight, at least tonight, he wouldn’t have to fight them alone.


	8. Benign

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This codeword gives me all kinds of fits and it's Marvel's fault. 
> 
> At the start of CA:CW, Karpov reads the word "добросердечный," which certainly can translate to "benign," but also has a connotation of good-hearted, pure, etc. (Literally translated it means "pleasant hearted.") But when Zemo reads the codewords, he says "доброкачественный," which can also translate to "benign" but literally translated means "good quality" and has more connotations of unalloyed, unadulterated, etc, that kind of pure rather than an abstract concept of purity.
> 
> Sooo I kind of went for a mix of the two.
> 
> Sorry this chapter is so late--lots of other deadlines this week! I need to review my outline, but I do think I'm well on track to finish this series by the end of the month, which is all kinds of exciting. I've also already planned the ridiculous, outrageously bad Stucky AU fic I'll be writing as a holiday gift. Beware.

  **0000111: Benign**

 

When he woke up, Natasha was gone, leaving only the scent of her on his pillow. Bucky breathed in deeply, taking comfort in the old familiar smell, and curled his arm against his chest. No nightmares last night. At least, none could remember. Maybe he really was making progress.

He pulled himself out of bed and sauntered over to his dining table, stretching. Next to the tray of food, someone had stacked a handful of battered journals. Bucky paused, breath hitching in his throat. _His_ journals. All the fragmented memories he’d jotted down as he’d made his way east, from New York to Paris to Vienna to Prague to Bucharest, some magnetic pull calling him home, begging him to remember, some instinct urging him to return. But it wasn’t anything but Hydra’s deep-seated programming.

The journals—they helped him remember things he’d rather forget, but in remembering, he’d found himself again.

Tears pricked at his eyes as he reached for the folded piece of paper tented on top of the stack. A smiley face, and Natasha’s signature. He laughed in spite of himself. Then he flipped the paper over.

**_P.S. – TELL STEVE!!!! :)_ **

Bucky grimaced and crumpled the paper.

Someone knocked at the door to his suite. “Hey, is everyone decent?” Sam. “All right if I come in?”

“It’s just me.” Bucky let him in, then turned back to the table to pick at his breakfast. Sam glanced around the suite, hands in his pockets, trying and failing to look casual. “Natasha’s gone,” Bucky said.

“Everything all right?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. I needed to . . .” Bucky closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. “It was good to hear from her, you know? Get some closure. On a lot of things.”

“I figured as much,” Sam said. He hesitated and traced his fingers along the spines of the journals. “Then are you two . . .”

“We’re friends,” Bucky said. With a glance at Sam’s raised eyebrow, he added, “ _Just_ friends.”

Sam nodded, as if he expected as much. “You two have been through hell and back together. Keeping in touch with someone who’s shared something like that with you . . . that can make all the difference in the world.”

“I don’t exactly think Natasha’s going to be my penpal now,” Bucky said.

“No. But she’s watching out for us. And you and her clearly worked together well once upon a time,” Sam said. “I’m sure you can do it again.”

Bucky smiled sadly as he picked up an orange slice. He always did love to see Natasha work. She was born to be an operator. And he . . . well, he was made to follow. But she made it easy. Effortless.

Far less painful than it should have been.

“You know,” Sam said, “I don’t think we every formally asked you. If this is what you want.”

Sam sat down in the chair opposite Bucky and stared out the thick plate windows. The orange haze of sunrise filtered through the leafy cliffside. As Bucky followed his gaze, he caught himself scanning the treetops, looking for the telltale wink of a rifle scope or the rustle of movement. He jammed a slice of orange into his mouth and forced himself to chew. The pulp tasted like acid, but then, nothing ever tasted great to him.

Bucky swallowed, but the fruit felt stuck in his throat. “I asked Steve to wake me up when they found a way to help me.”

“Yeah, but you never said you were on board for what comes next.”

A choice. He’d forgotten how that felt. Wake up, take down orders, carry them out. It certainly made things easier.

“We’re getting close, you know. You’re making great strides.” Sam smiled, in his effortless way, eyes sparkling with the dawn as they crinkled at the corners. “It’s pretty clear why Steve—trusts you. Believes in you. You’re a good man, Barnes.”

Bucky tried smiling back, but he felt more like an animal baring its teeth.

Sam waved his hand. “We can work on the smiling. I just wanna know—when this is done and you’re cleared, when all of Hydra’s power to take control of you again is gone—what do you really want for yourself?”

“I don’t know.”

He ran his fingers down the spines of his journals. While it felt comforting to have them back, he already knew perfectly well what they contained. The tight spirals of words, swirling on each other, as he tried to make sense of another fragment of memory. For two years, he’d done little else. He’d been polishing and polishing a tarnished piece of silver, and left the proof of his efforts in those books. But now he could almost see his reflection in it. And that was a scary thing unto itself.

“You don’t have to help Steve, you know.”

Bucky’s throat tightened. Could it ever be like they were before? Steve charging forward without thinking, and Bucky racing to protect him. To make sure he came out of it on the other side. He’d followed Steve to the gates of Hell. Left himself there as sacrifice. And he would do it all again—

The very thought that he didn’t have to, didn’t _need_ to, twisted like a thorn under his skin. He didn’t want to feel it, think it. He wanted it gone.

Two soldiers, looking for their next war. If he went home—whatever that meant these days—then he did so without Steve. It was its own form of surrender. Admitting that what he wanted most in the world would never be his. As long as they were fighting, as long as there was another reason for them to soldier on, then he could stay at Steve’s side. The only place in the world that felt like—

That felt like home.

“Just something to think about,” Sam said, and cleared his throat. “Maybe that’s a conversation for you and Steve to have, not me.”

“Thanks,” Bucky said. He hated that his heartrate leapt at the implication in Sam’s words: that he and Steve might be having just such a conversation. Maybe even sometime soon.

Sam stood. “Ready to get back to work?”

And the sooner their work was done, then maybe, just maybe, the sooner that conversation would come.

“I’m ready.”

For once, the words that followed— _to comply—_ didn’t echo in his mind. But he felt their absence all the same.

 

*

 

“Sleep well last night?” Claire asked, as she strapped him in and attached the sensors. There was an eyebrow-waggle somewhere in her tone, he could hear it, but Bucky just smiled and offered a polite nod. “Glad to hear it. Taking your dosage down another notch tomorrow if you’re good tonight.”

“I’ll try my best,” Bucky answered, matching the teasing in her tone.

She laughed to herself and patted his arm before heading back to her station.

Bucky looked toward Sam, waiting in his usual seat. No Wanda still. As much as he hated the thought of letting anyone that close to the raw surface of his mind, he’d gotten used to the feeling of her there, softening the sharp corners as he blundered through the past. But he could hardly blame her if she needed some time. He was no prize—surely not nearly as fun as other people whose minds she’d probed.

Especially if she were doing it for Hydra. Who knew what they asked her to do? Who knew what she willingly agreed to rip from people’s heads for them?

“All right, Barnes. First off, I want to check that yesterday’s new technique is holding steady. So do your exercises, get ready, but . . . it’s time.”

Bucky forced the air to stay in his lungs for a three count before he exhaled. Three, two, one, breathe in. Imagined a Brooklyn sunset, the city sounds beneath him as reassuring as the lap of an ocean’s wave.

“ _Zhelaniye._ ”

The images darted below the surface of his thoughts, but he let them pass him by.

“ _Rzhavuy. . . . Syemnadtsat’._ ”

A flicker here and there, shooting up like sparks. But he kept the sunset all around him. Heard the scratch of Steve’s pencil as he sketched.

“ _Rassvet. Pyech’._ ”

The tickle of flames reaching for him—but he focused on the sun melting into the skyscrapers, the creeping chill of night’s breeze, the warmth of Steve at his side.

“ _Devyat’._ ”

Bucky let out his breath.

“ _Dobroserdechniy_.”

The word struck him square in the gut. The surface of his thoughts turned to chop; the night grew teeth. “No,” Bucky whispered.

Sam tilted his head. “Focus, Barnes. Tell me what you’re thinking and feeling and experiencing when you hear the word ‘benign.’ _Dobroserdechniy._ ”

The harsh edge of the forest sprung up around him; the wind raked across his face. His toes curled, numb with cold, as he huffed a quiet breath onto his fingers. Had to stay warm. Stay limber. Stay alert.

“ _Dobroserdechniy_ ,” Sam repeated.

A many-faceted word, in Russian. Benign. Good-hearted. High-quality. Pure.

A word Steve thought applied to him—but Steve would think that. He was the purest-hearted of them all.

 

*

 

One thousand yards away, the rest of the Howling Commandos dozed in the hollow beneath a felled tree’s roots. But Bucky was up here, tied around a tree branch, rifle stretched before him and the cold buzzing in his ears.

Not just the cold. There was something else buzzing inside him, an eerie hyperfocus he’d been noticing more and more of late. Like in the Hydra factory, he’d learned to step outside of himself and give his body over fully to the task at hand. Now, though, there were no daydreams; no Brooklyn dance halls and lazy sunsets with Steve that he could escape to. Now he felt as blank and dark as the night, and let his body pull its own strings.

They’d destroyed the munitions outpost earlier that morning before dawn, gunpowder catching and sparking a glorious blaze that lit their retreat. Now, twenty miles out, they had to remain vigilant for any stragglers. He’d quickly taken to the role of sniper. In Basic, he’d gotten good ratings for marksmanship, but ever since they came back from Azzano, his rifle felt like an extension of himself, both graceful and brutal. He slipped away and became one with his calculations chart and the curved glass of the scope and the held-breath moment of blissful emptiness just before he pulled the trigger.

A purpose. A soldier who’d found his calling. And to be able to do it to protect Steve—god.

In the quiet cold of night, a part of him wished this war would never end.

He heard the shift in silence of the forest. Heavy and expectant, like an unanswered question. Moving carefully, not letting the branch creak, he lowered his eye to the rifle’s scope.

Two men in white camouflage were creeping through the undergrowth, about four hundred yards out. Well-armed. Their armbands marked them as Hydra, as he’d feared; most likely they’d been some of the sensible ones from that morning who saw the tide of the outpost battle turning against them and grabbed what ammo they could before melting into the trees.

Bucky let the rustle of the wind through the leafless branches wash over him. He hardly ever consulted his calculator these days before lining up a shot. Three hundred fifty yards . . . Instinct seemed to steer him with a firm hand—coiled his muscles just so, corrected his sights, threaded him through a needle of perfect focus as he took aim. He brought the closest man into his targeting hairs. If he was quick, he could take him down and already have sights on the second before they even knew what was happening. The rifle fire would wake up the Commandos, or at least Steve, with his enhanced hearing, just in case either shot missed—

The air around Bucky whizzed, and a blur of red and blue flew past him and struck the first man square in the chest.

_Shit_. The second man took off in an instant as Steve’s shield came swirling back. “I got it!” Steve shouted as he raced past Bucky’s perch.

“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” Bucky muttered to himself. He’d volunteered for first watch, not that he felt himself needing sleep much regardless these days.

Five hundred yards, six—the guy was retreating, and fast. Much further and Bucky couldn’t guarantee he’d make the shot. Well—judging by his old marksmanship tests, at least, but then he hadn’t been retested since the Howling Commandos started up their missions. Six-fifty. His breathing shallowed out, the world shrank to blackness and the barely-moonlit figure . . .

He took the shot.

The man crumpled. It hit too low, but still hit him, tearing through the back of his knee. Bucky let out a shaky breath. No way he should have been able to hit that. But the crackle of adrenaline in his veins—and the crackle of something else—reminded him that a lot of things that shouldn’t have been possible, lately, were.

The first Hydra agent was standing up, now, but as Bucky discarded the spent shell and took aim, Steve had caught up to him. Bullseye Bucky or not, he couldn’t risk hitting Steve. Bucky reached for the knotted rope that bound him to his makeshift perch and set to work freeing himself from the tree. He shimmed down the trunk, slung his rifle over his back, and broke into a run.

The trees blurred around him as the snow crunched underfoot. The man was pulling out a sidearm, but Steve was too quick, shield raising, bullets ricocheting, the clang of vibranium and skull rattling through the night. Bucky reached for his sidearm, but as he jogged up to Steve and the Hydra agent, it became abundantly clear his help wasn’t required.

“You okay?” Steve asked, looking him over. Steve was out of his uniform, wearing the thermal longjohns, leather jacket, and thick woolen socks he slept in when they were in the field. No helmet. Untied boots. Bucky smiled to himself, remembering the little Stevie who couldn’t keep his loafers tied in grade school. Then his gaze snagged on the firm arc of muscles that were Steve’s thighs, and a knot pulled tight in his gut.

“I’m fine. I’d just spotted them—was about to take them out.”

“You heard them?” Steve sounded impressed. “I barely heard it myself—”

“Yeah, well, I was a lot closer than you.” Bucky squared his jaw and hoped that would be the end of that line of inquiry. He was imagining things. He was becoming a better soldier, that was all, especially now that it was Steve’s life at stake as well as his and his men’s. Whatever that monster at Hydra had done to him—

Steve and Bucky turned as one as they heard the rest of the Commandos approach.

“What the devil’s all this?” Falsworth charged toward them, rifle at the ready, with Jones and Morita close behind. Dugan and Dernier could sleep through a firebombing, so Bucky wasn’t surprised to see them lagging behind.

“We got some stragglers,” Bucky said. “From the outpost, I’d wager.”

Steve gestured toward the second agent whose kneecap Bucky had torn open, face-down in the snow across the creek that twisted through the forest. He was attempting to drag himself through the snow, leaving a viscous trail of red through the white. Bucky unslung his rifle and prepared to take aim—

“No, Buck. Wait.” Steve rest his hand on the muzzle of Bucky’s rifle. “Corpses can’t give us information.”

Bucky lowered the gun and locked eyes with Steve. Steve’s mouth was twitching with a smile, as if he’d never really thought they were in danger. Bucky felt the frantic itch of terror still in the back of his mind, but he forced himself to match Steve’s ease. Everything was effortless for Captain America, after all. Everything always went to plan.

The Hydra agent groaned, and in a blur, Steve shot across the frozen creek bed toward the man.

Bucky looked back toward Falsworth, Morita, and Jones. Their breaths were forming ghosts in the night air. “Get Dugan and Durnier up. Spread out and search the forest. We need to know where these guys came from and if there are any more of them.”

“Roger,” Jones said. “If we’re going to interrogate him, I can—”

But Bucky heard the click of a safety flicking off.

He was flying toward the creek without a moment’s thought. Barreling toward Steve, toward the wounded Hydra soldier he was wrestling with. The man was reaching into his boot—pulling out a pistol—

“Steve, look out!”

Bucky raced across the creek bed, but his boots skidded on the ice. He’d been moving with an unfamiliar force, a startling new burst of energy. He spread his arms wide to catch his balance. But Steve was staring at him, not at the Hydra agent. Still on the ice, Bucky rose his sidearm and took aim.

The agent went down in a spray of red.

“Bucky—” Steve dropped the agent and scrambled backward. “He could’ve told us—”

“You missed his sidearm. In his boot.” Bucky lowered his pistol, but scanned the treeline. There could be more. For the dead of night, everything was so bright, so unbearably sharp, the snow glowing with reflected starlight, the pines leaving stark streaks in the night. “Come on—we need to sweep the treeline—”

And then he heard the ice splintering beneath him.

Bucky leapt forward, aiming for the creek bed, but the ice was there and then _gone_ , sucked under in the rush of the water beneath the creek’s thin frozen skin. His left leg slipped into the current and the water’s force ripped him away. He clawed at the ice as water rushed into his boots, under his coat, around his mouth, but everywhere he touched seemed to crumble and tear away.

“Bucky!” Steve screamed. “Bucky, hang on!”

The cold water slapped him like a jolt of caffeine. Rather than numbing him, it amplified every sensation. The currents twisting around his body, the mineral smell of the water, the muffled sounds of Steve shouting somewhere overhead. It wasn’t even unpleasant. Everything seemed to move slowly all around him, and he could tease apart the strands of the moment, reliving perfectly how he’d come to this place. Calculate the way to claw himself out of the stream, if he could punch through the ice—and he had no reason to think he couldn’t—

But then the ice shattered over him, and Steve’s arms wrapped around his shoulders, and then he was sprawled on the creek bed, staring up at the stars, so painfully bright like an operating bay. The cold pierced him like thousands of needles and set his blood aflame.

“Bucky. Bucky, talk to me. Can you breathe?”

Bucky spat out a mouthful of water. His skin was practically burning. The soggy wool of his coat felt impossibly heavy; his every shudder and shake made it chafe against his raw skin. “I—I’m fine, Steve, I just need—”

No, he didn’t need to warm up. He was fine. _Beyond_ fine. The chill was completely gone, despite being soaked through. He should have been sinking into hypothermic shock. But he felt nothing, not a flicker of cold, only the hyperawareness and sensitivity he’d felt up in his sniper’s perch.

“Get him back to camp. Now,” Morita shouted. “Let them deal with the hunt. We need to wrap him up.”

Steve hoisted Bucky up in his arms.

“Seriously, Steve, I’m fine—”

But Steve bounded over the creek, landing with far less force than either of them warranted, and trudged through the snow at superhuman speed. Bucky’s teeth rattled as Steve rushed them past Dugan and Dernier, just now fanning out into the treeline to hunt for more Hydra. “Stay with me, Buck,” Steve muttered.

“I’m _fine_ ,” Bucky said.

But as the fever flashed through his body, he feared the truth was more complicated than that.

Steve settled him into the base of the hollow they’d carved out the night before. His gloved fingers fumbled with the buttons on Bucky’s coat until he pulled off the gloves, but then, he was shaking too much; finally he pried the soggy jacket open.

Bucky wanted to help, imagined himself helping, but every time he tried to raise his hands, it was as if they belonged to someone else. Maybe they did. Half his mind was in the darkness of the night, waiting for a new threat; it was scanning the treeline for movement and sinking into the deep black of emptiness. Preparedness.

The other half—the half still in the moment with Steve—knew, deep down, that he was at no risk of hypothermia. That he should get up. Shake it off. Assure Steve that everything was all right.

Or maybe it was all hypothermia talking.

_Sergeant Barnes. The procedure is about to begin._

Steve peeled him out of the rest of his clothes. They were already stiff and crunchy as the moisture in them refroze. His skin felt too tight, so tight, and yet as Steve’s fingers brushed across him—as Steve’s arms wrapped around him—

“Stay with me,” Steve whispered, cradling him. Breath surging over Bucky’s ear. Somewhere deep down, it felt like a promise. But also like nothing at all.

_The procedure is about_

He had to fight. _Stay here._ Stay in this body, this mind, don’t detach, don’t lose himself to the instincts he’d felt cinching around him like a noose—

“Please, Buck.” Steve had piled all of the men’s blankets on top of them, and their heat radiated. Burned straight into Bucky’s core. “I can’t lose you again.”

“No,” Bucky whispered. Coming back to himself—if he’d ever left. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

Steve pressed his face into Bucky’s shoulder. They were face to face, or nearly. As close as they’d ever been, at least since Steve joined the Army and found his new calling. Bucky’s hands slipped around Steve’s waist. Closing every gap between their bodies. Holding tight. In case he never felt this again. In case he lost himself fully to whatever this _thing_ was, tugging at his mind.

Steve froze. His breathing stopped; his eyes narrowed, looking over Bucky’s face. Assessing.

Bucky wondered what he was deciding. Whether hypothermia was still a risk? Whether it was wrong to be this close for any other cause? But he didn’t care, he couldn’t care, all he wanted was to cling to this moment.

It wasn’t a second chance—he could never erase the harm he’d caused ten years ago, when he should’ve surrendered to his yearning and damned the consequences. He had no guarantee that Steve, pure, righteous, avenging Steve, still felt the way he had.

But they were soldiers. Life could be ripped away in an instant. If this was as close as Bucky could come to feeling his body pressed against Steve’s and to breathing his same air and to know, absolutely _knowing_ , that there is nothing one of them could do that the other wouldn’t follow—

Then he would cling to that.

If that made him impure, so be it. If that made him wrong—well, it wouldn’t be the first time.

Steve’s heart was so big, and Bucky only wished he could stake a claim in it of his own.

“Don’t leave me, Buck.”

_I love you, Steve._ His fingertips dug into Steve’s waist, its sharp curves beneath the thin waffle weave of his longjohns. He loved him like the dawn breaking over the next hill: always running for it, even if it was never his to catch.

“Without you, I’m . . . something far less,” Steve said.

Bucky knew just what he meant. When he thought he would die without ever seeing Steve’s face again, it only seemed fitting. But now he was made whole. Most of the time. And he intended to hold onto it for as long as he dared.

“Stay with me,” Bucky whispered.

Steve’s lashes brushed against his cheek. His lips were up against Bucky’s neck. Not a kiss, but it was so close, the closest Bucky ever dared to hope for. Steve pulled him tight, their lean bodies curled together, and closed his eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.”


	9. Homecoming

 

**0001000: Homecoming**

 

Even after Steve had rescued him, he’d been infected. A dead man walking, or so it felt. He felt the teeth and claws of Zola’s poison inside of him, scratching to break free, hollowing him out, turning him into something else. But he’d still had control of his mind. He’d still known exactly who and what he was.

In some ways, it was worse, to watch it happening to him with full awareness of his disease. But at least then, he could use it to protect Steve. Use it to aid the Howling Commandos and try to turn the tide of battle. But even then, he’d known he was a soldier. For him, the war would never end. He could never truly go home.

Maybe it was for the best. For Captain America, home meant victory parades and banquet dinners and a chest full of medals and stealth missions deep in the night. For James Barnes, home was an empty flat and a photograph of the two boys whose skins they’d shed.

 

*

 

Claire drew the last vial of blood, removed the tubing from Bucky’s inner arm, and swiped it clean. “All done.”

“Thanks,” Bucky said, and flexed his forearm absently. He’d barely noticed the syringe slide in. “Anything else you need from me?”

“Maybe a little feedback.” She stepped into his field of vision, one eyebrow raised. “How’re you sleeping?”

Bucky managed a dry laugh. “What, you don’t already know? I thought your team had sensors all over this place.”

“I know what the numbers say.” Claire frowned. “I want to know what _you_ think.”

Bucky exhaled and leaned forward in his chair. “All right, I guess.” He blinked; saw the flicker of faces that waited for him every time he closed his eyes. The woman in a power suit with half her skull punched in. The security guard, his body riddled with holes. _Good work, soldier._ _They will be pleased._ The accumulated kills of a loyal hound. “Could be better, could be worse.”

“I guess you’re almost done,” she said. ‘That must be a relief, right?”

An empty room, a single photograph. No. It wasn’t like he had anywhere to go. No home to return to. No life where he could just pick back up and keep going.

Bucky shook his head. “Not really.”

She smiled sadly. “I’m sorry, Barnes.”

“Sam and Steve want me to help them. I mean—it’s why they’re going to all this trouble, isn’t it?” he asked.

Claire pressed her lips together, a silent confirmation. “But is that what you want?”

“I don’t know.” He imagined Steve, and that shy smile he’d had in the video, reminiscing on the past. But it wouldn’t be like the past. It could never be that again. In some ways, it felt like going with Steve was just running all over again—avoiding whatever came next. As long as there was a war to fight, he had a purpose. It was when the violence stopped that he fell apart.

“I’ve got a book you might like. I can probably get you the audio version.” Claire bit her lower lip and glanced down. “ _Man’s Search for Meaning—_ it’s by this psychiatrist, the only Holocaust survivor in his whole family. It’s helped me through some tough times.”

“Yeah?”

“I got into nursing to help people, but it sure didn’t always feel like I was doing any good,” she said. “I mean, stitching up gangbangers in the ER who shot each other up, or patching up a guy’s hand after he broke it on his wife’s face . . .” She shook her head. “Sometimes it didn’t feel like I was making quite the difference I wanted to.”

Bucky grimaced. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It comes with the territory.” She stood up and straightened her scrubs. “Anyway, I’ll send you the audiobook. Maybe give you something to think about.”

“Thanks. I’d like that.” He managed a faint smile.

She headed for the door, then stopped and turned to look back at it. “Oh. I’m surprised you still haven’t asked, by the way.”

He blinked. “Asked about what?”

“About your arm.” She gestured toward the covered stump of his metal arm. “You haven’t said one thing about what you want to do with it.”

Bucky’s throat tightened. “I haven’t really given it any thought.”

A minor lie. Sometimes, he felt safer without it. Or rather—he felt like everyone else was safer that way. But like everything else, he was waiting for someone else to tell him what to do, where to go, how to be.

The idea that he had any choice in the matter—he was still adjusting to that.

She made a _hmm_ ing noise. “Well, maybe you should.”

 

*

 

_Everything can be taken from man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms. To choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances. To choose one’s own way._

_Those who have a ‘why’ to live can bear almost any ‘how.’_

When he was lifting weights, it was easy for Bucky to step outside of himself and become nothing but the rep count and the mechanical motion. But the narrator’s words through the speaker system grounded him. He’d much rather lose himself in the frantic noise of music than the incisive thoughts. Each sentence was like an accusation. Did he have a _why_ to live? Something carrying him on, beyond protecting Steve? Could that be enough?

He’d lived this long on instinct. After escaping Hydra for good, he survived because it was what he knew how to do, and while he’d tried to stitch his memory back together, each remembered artifact was just another piece of baggage weighing him down. To survive was mindlessness. To live—he still didn’t know how or why he wanted to do that.

A chime rang over the speaker system—someone at the fitness center door. Bucky racked the dumbbell he’d been curling and pressed the button to let them in.

“Hello.” Wanda’s Sokovian accent bit down on the edges of the word. “Do you think maybe we could talk?”

Bucky glanced her over. She wasn’t wearing her usual armor of rings and necklaces, and had pulled her hair back into an uncomplicated ponytail. God, she looked so young, but then, he supposed he had been too, when Hydra first got ahold of him. There was that hardness to her mouth and distance in her gaze that showed she’d seen some hint of what he’d endured, too.

“Sure. Come on in.” He stepped away and set himself to task racking the weights to his barbell for one-armed bench presses. A slow, laborious process, but he made it work.

Wanda positioned herself opposite his bench and chewed at her thumbnail. “I didn’t know about everything they did.” Hydra. She couldn’t even say it. “About—almost anything, really. All I wanted was revenge.”

Bucky settled onto the bench and curled his fingers around the bar. Deep breath. When he raised the bar off the rack, it was off-balance; he dropped it back down and adjusted his grip. “Revenge for what?”

“Sokovia’s been a battleground for as long as I could remember. And the men waging the wars got their weapons from Stark Industries. Stark bombs killed my family, Stark weapons tore down our block . . . For a long time, I could not see the difference between a weapon with his name and Tony Stark himself.”

“Funny,” Bucky said. “I think Tony has the same problem with me.”

She laughed bitterly. “I suppose so.”

Bucky finished his set and set the bar back on its rack. “So you signed up to become a weapon of your own.”

“They preyed on that, you know. In your time too, I’d wager.” She let her hand fall away from her mouth. “People with a fire in them and no good way to let it burn. I should’ve known better. My brother and I both.”

Bucky paused at that. Steve hadn’t said anything about a second Hydra kid. “Your brother?”

“Pietro,” she said. “Hydra experimented on him, too. Made him faster than any human. But not too fast for Ultron.”

“I’m so sorry, Wanda.” Bucky glanced toward her, but she’d turned to face the wall of windows, staring at the dazzle of sunlight catching on the cliffs. The next thought that came to him, though, he wisely held back. Hadn’t Tony built Ultron, as well?

“And I’m sorry for what they did to you. Sorry that I could turn to people like that in my own grief. Desperation.” Wanda drew a shaky breath. “They only showed us what they wanted us to see, to persuade us that we were making the right choice. You . . . they never gave you such a choice. And I can never forgive them that.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Wanda.” Bucky rose the weight for another round of one-armed presses. “This wasn’t your fight to begin with. I’m sorry for any trouble I’ve brought on you . . .”

“You still don’t get it, do you?” She shook her head. “This is our fight—everyone’s. You didn’t deserve any of the horrendous things Hydra did to you, and you don’t deserve any of the cruelty you’ve been met with since.” Her head tipped to one side. “Do you even know this? You are a good person. And when people see what was done to you, it makes them scared, I think. Because if they could do it to you, then they could have done it to you. Hell.” Her upper lip curled back. “It scared me. That’s why I had to leave.”

Bucky’s grip on the bar faltered; he’d gotten off-balance again. The weight wobbled, threatening to tip over—

With a flick of Wanda’s fingertips, red shimmering strands of energy shot out and stabilized the weight. Bucky set it back onto the rack with a sigh.

“Steve Rogers is the best man I know. And if Steve Rogers is in awe of you—then I knew you were someone worth saving,” Wanda said. “I wish you’d trust his judgment.”

“I’m working on it, all right?” Bucky slid out from under the weight rack and sat up.

“The man I see inside your memories—he is you. Not these things your hands as done. Not these orders they obeyed. But I understand. It took me a long time to forgive myself for what I did willingly. Now that I have, though . . .”

Bucky leaned forward. She might have forgiven herself, but a fire clearly still burned in her. He found it drawing him in.

“I will make sure I use what I’ve been given so it never happens again. Whether it’s Hydra, the UN, or anyone else.”

Something stirred in Bucky’s chest. For the briefest moment, he could glimpse it—a calling, a purpose. Protecting not just Steve, but anyone threatened by cruelty and injustice. Wasn’t that what drove Steve on, and always had? In a way, it had been Bucky’s cause, too. He couldn’t bask in Steve’s inner light without finding a glow of his own every now and then. But was it really his to call his own, or did it belong to Steve, too?

“What are you going to do, then?” Bucky asked. “Once you and Sam are done . . . you know.” He flicked his hand. “Helping me.”

Her forehead crinkled. “Well, help Captain Rogers, of course.” It sounded so matter-of-fact in her accent. “If this gem can do what the Strange man says it can, then we must do whatever we can to safeguard it. From Tony and his traitors, and from anyone else who would use it for ill.”

“What gem?” Bucky asked. “I’m confused—Sam said this Strange guy had some kind of . . . power.”

“Oops.” Wanda smirked, not looking the least bit contrite. “I forgot. We aren’t supposed to tell you yet.”

Bucky felt his temper rising. _Good._ It felt good to be angry—at Steve, at Sam, at whoever else wanted to keep him in the dark. “And why not?”

“Steve doesn’t want you getting any ideas.” She snorted. “I told him maybe it’d be good for you to have an idea of your own. Better than moping around with one arm, regretting the past when there’s a whole new life ahead of you. But what do I know, I’m just the kid, yes?”

“What ideas does he think I’m going to get about some gem?”

“Oh, it isn’t just some gem.” Wanda fanned her fingers in front of her. “It controls time itself. And with it, time can be unmade and remade. Over and over. The other times stay put, though. Dozens of universes, all crammed together like the pages of a book.” She snapped her fingers together once more. “But whoever controls the gem . . . they can find whatever timeline they like to lead them to their goal.”

Different timelines. Bucky bit down on the inside of his cheek. A window into another life, another outcome. Yeah, he supposed he could see why Steve wouldn’t want him to know about that.

It was funny to think now Steve was the one trying to shield him. But stranger still to think that, just around the edge of this life, sat another one where there had been no war, no serum, no Hydra, no fall. And if that world could exist, what else might exist? One where they’d never needed to hide. Where he could have told Steve the truth, not only told him, but maybe have it reciprocated. Maybe in that world, they wouldn’t need a war to keep them together. They could have loved each other openly, unafraid.

A quiet life. A perfect life.

Bucky closed his eyes. As if Steve was ever one for the easy path. And maybe that was part of what Bucky loved in him. What were they, without their struggle? Who were they without a war to drive them on?

“I . . . hope I haven’t upset you,” Wanda said. “I just thought you deserved to know.”

“Thank you.” Bucky stared down at his hand; he’d curled it into a fist. “But . . . who exactly are they keeping the gem safe from?”

Wanda’s eyes narrowed as something dark crossed her face. “Who aren’t they? Everyone wants that kind of power. Undo their mistakes, right any perceived wrong. But of course there will always be men who want more power than they can even fathom. And now they are coming for us.”

“Can’t say I blame them.” Bucky raised one eyebrow at her. “That kind of power . . . Who wouldn’t want to get ahold of that?”

Wanda crossed her arms and regarded him coolly. “What exactly are you saying, Barnes?”

“I just hope Steve’s choosing his people carefully, that’s all.” But he knew, the moment he said it, that Steve wasn’t. If Steve was really looking for people with no regrets, no awful pasts to undo, he wouldn’t have come to Bucky for help.

Because a power like that—it almost sounded too good to be true. Erasing decades of nightmares. Steve had to know he’d be tempted by something like that. Maybe it’s why he’d kept him in the dark this long—was waiting to see if they’d actually made any progress in deprogramming the horrors inside his head. But it would never be long enough.

“Captain Rogers knows exactly who he’s dealing with,” Wanda said, her tone sharp as a scalpel. “I only hope you can recognize it for yourself.”

“You’ve seen what’s in my head. You should know better than anyone how terrible an idea this is. The man I was as the Winter Soldier—it’s not like an outer layer I can just peel away. You know that, don’t you?”

Wanda jerked her chin in a nod. “I do. The instincts and knowledge and violence you were as that man—it is all tangled up with James Barnes.” Her expression softened. “But it is still only part of the whole. James Barnes is in all of your thoughts, your instincts, your memories. And he will no longer be suppressed. It is a powerful combination, to be made into a weapon but to now have control of the man you have become. I hope you can see that for yourself very soon.”

Wanda pushed away from the window and headed for the fitness center door. A jumble of memories and emotions flood through him as he watched her; glimpses of those times when he’d been in control. The way it felt to use his senses for himself. He’d been coming to terms with it, in Romania. Finding all the ways his metal arm could be used to protect as well as hurt. The way his enhanced cognitive senses allowed him to puzzle out his past, his present, and everything in between.

“A weapon’s not much good without a war to fight,” Bucky said. He couldn’t keep chasing endless battles, even if that’s what Steve needed him to do. For Bucky, it felt too much like running away.

Wanda paused at the doorway, smirking once more. “Fortunately, you are more than just a weapon now.”

Bucky wanted to believe that was true.

 

*

 

“Three more codewords, Barnes. You’ve got to be feeling pretty good,” Sam said, as the technicians hooked him up once more. “Sleep any better last night?”

He’d had dreams—nightmares, even—but the details evaporated the moment he woke up, leaving him only with a vague sense of unease. “I think it’s getting better.”

“Glad to hear it. We want you well-rested. That is, if you decide you want to help . . .” Sam trailed off. “Well. In any case, I’m glad you’re improving.”

“Executive function’s looking stronger,” Claire said, from somewhere over Bucky’s shoulder. “We’re showing remarkable improvements day to day.”

“How about that?” Sam clapped Bucky on the shoulder, and Bucky smiled back. “Getting you all tuned up.”

“It’s all you. I just sit here,” Bucky said.

Sam spread his arms. “I know, I am pretty great.” His playful expression faltered. “But we still have work to do. And then you and I need to talk.”

Bucky felt his own smile fade. He’d been smiling without realizing it—easy, effortless. He nodded and met Sam’s gaze. “I’m ready.”

“Good, good.” Sam sat down next to Wanda, giving her an acknowledging nod. “All right if Wanda helps us out again?”

Bucky glanced toward her; she wiggled her fingers in greeting. He smiled again. “I wouldn’t dream of working without her.”

She covered her mouth, but Bucky saw the smile crinkling her eyes.

Bucky settled back against the cushions. They hadn’t fastened him in nearly as tightly this time. It felt almost too easy, slipping into this slightly awkward show of camaraderie, but sometimes, he’d found, the easiest thing was to fake it until he didn’t have to fake it anymore. It helped him slide around his father, back in the day, avoiding his temper and his unsavory friends; it helped him control his feelings for Steve for years on end. But it was so exhausting. Surely it was wearing on Sam and Wanda and Claire, too.

But as Sam flipped through the red notebook, he gave no sign of it. “So, Barnes, how about you tell me about ‘homecoming’? _Vozvrasheniye na rodinu._ ”

Bucky leaned into the headrest as the words darted through his thoughts. A return to the motherland. Homecoming. Repatriation. He allowed himself a bitter smile. Something he’d never truly have.

“ _Vozvrasheniye na rodinu_ ,” Sam repeated, as Wanda spun her red strands.

_Homecoming._

_One._

_Freight—_

 

*

 

The city was familiar—too familiar. Some unknowable instinct in the soldier was filling in blanks that his handler’s maps had left out. Without turning, he knew the shape of the building hovering over his shoulder and felt the bridge’s presence like a spectre, waiting to loom into view.

And the smell, too—like rotting fish and churning waves and hot asphalt, freshly poured. The soldier’s brain was on fire. No, not quite right—it was trying and failing to catch flame. So many sparks that should have ignited a memory. He felt each one crackling as he pulled his cap down low, hunched his shoulders, and made his way down the street.

One target. A diplomat, finely tailored suit, thick shades, bristling mustache and beard. Get to the vantage point. Wait for the target to return from his business across the bridge at the UN. The soldier became one with the swarm of people as they went about their evening. The cafés and bars glowed golden, their light spilling across his sidewalk path. The chattering artists and workers and women in long camel-colored coats paid him no mind. But he kept finding himself looking for something—something beyond his usual surveillance detection, his usual quiet mode of scanning the crowd and updating his mental assessment of his surroundings.

There was something missing and his mission brief, perfectly memorized, held no clues as to what it could be.

The soldier turned up the collar of his peacoat and adjusted his driving cap again to better shield his face. So many eyes, all around him, and it felt like each one of them was turned his way. Like they not only saw him, but _knew_ him, like they were judging him. But that was impossible. Yet it crawled on his skin. Something was wrong here. Something was very wrong.

His shoulder slammed into a woman as she brushed past. “Excuse you!” she cried.

The soldier staggered back. This corner, this block—His arm whirred as the plates readjusted from the blow and her eyes widened—

He turned on his heel and darted across the street, dodging around a flurry of honking cars.

This was all wrong and he didn’t know why. Sweat trickled from beneath his cap and slicked his stringy hair to the back of his neck. He drew a ragged breath and tried to fall back on his training. Scan his surroundings. Regulate his heartbeat. Review the mission. He was to wait for the diplomat’s return, then gain entrance to his flat. Easy. Senseless.

But it was the waiting, it was this all-too-familiar city. Too many paths for his thoughts to walk down as his mind wandered. The street shifted around him. Rather than a snow-flecked dreary evening, he remembered it painted with sunlight, remembered walking it not alone, but with—

_C’mon, Buck, we’re going to be late!_

The soldier slumped against a brick wall. No. He couldn’t face this, whatever it was: memories or daydreams or whatever else. If his handler knew, if they even _suspected_ . . . But had this happened before? That’s where the fear came from, hadn’t it? He must have disobeyed.

Oh, god, he couldn’t disobey again.

Once or a dozen times, it didn’t matter. The raw fear tearing him open made that abundantly clear. He’d disobeyed before and it was unfathomable, the pain they could inflict. No. Whatever he thought he knew of this place, it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was the mission.

The tottering strains of piano chords wafted from the open window.

_Who’s strong and brave, here to save the American way?_

The soldier froze. He knew that melody. Even in the clumsy, off-key chanting of children coming from the window, he knew it.

_Who vows to fight like a man for what’s right night and day?_

“No, no, no!” The piano stopped and the kid’s voices dissolved. “Night and _day_ , night and _day_. Come on, your parents want to see how much you’ve learned in our Captain America play! From the top!”

The soldier pushed away from the wall, a dread calm overtaking him. _Captain America._ He glanced at the sign over the door of the school building where he rested: Red Hook Elementary School. Not part of his mission plan. But he had to know where this strange tug in his gut was leading him.

He hunched his shoulders again and slipped into the side entrance, following the voices toward the auditorium.

_Who’s here to prove that we can? The star-spangled man with a plan!_

On the stage, a cluster of kids in uniform charged toward a girl in a bright red mask. “Stop where you are, Red Skull!” the lead boy shouted, dressed in red, white and blue. “You’re no match for Captain America!”

The soldier’s jaw ached. He’d been clenching his teeth. _Scan your surroundings. Regulate your breathing._

“Captain, look out!” Another boy rushed in front of the boy with the shield. “He’s going to shoot!”

“Bucky, no!”

The soldier’s pulse roared in his ears.

The boy—Bucky—recoiled in horror as the girl with the red mask aimed a comically sized rifle at him and fired. He staggered backward across the stage, arms windmilling, then collapsed at the captain’s feet.

“It’s okay, Cap . . . go on . . . without me . . .” he wheezed.

The soldier jerked back from the doorway with a snarl.

His hands were shaking; his teeth chattered together. _Bucky. Cap._ The names circled around and around in his head. This city, these names, these streets, he knew it all, and it couldn’t have been just from the briefs.

And the man they all conjured up. Shoulders thrust back, chin high, blue eyes dazzling in the sunset. Was he tall, or short? It seemed to shift, but the man’s face remained, solid and determined. The soldier felt something unlocking inside of him, little by little, at the memory of that face. A powerful sensation, stronger even than his constant need to obey, to see his missions through. He needed to find that man.

He needed him.

And with that realization, he wanted to know _why_ , and that wanting would only lead him to more questions—more confusion—

_Bucky, no!_

All he could see was Steve. Steve straightening Bucky’s collar, turning it back down, Steve handing him his rifle, Steve smiling at him with the brightest certainty—

And everything else became a blur.

 

*

 

“But did you complete your mission?” Sam asked.

Bucky shook his head. “They found me curled up behind a dumpster in Red Hook. The diplomat was long gone—someone in his security team tipped him off that he’d made some enemies. So they sent someone else to take care of him as he flew back to Latveria. I—I think.” Bucky winced; his head was throbbing. “I don’t know. But Karpov was livid. Once they’d extracted me, pulled me back—back to the base in Oymyakon . . .”

_Back home._ That’s what instinct told him to say, even now. God, was he always going to feel this pull? When he was himself, the soldier called to him; when he was the soldier, Bucky struggled to break out. Wanda had said they were all tangled together into one now. Impossible to cut away the invader—if he even knew which one the invader was. Even now he wasn’t sure.

“You’re always going to feel echoes,” Sam said. “You’ve lived two lives. Hell, you’ve lived even more than that. Some you could control and some you couldn’t. But you can’t suppress any of them. Whatever’s happened, it brought you to this point. That—that might just be the hardest thing to accept of all.”

Everything had brought him to this moment. Disabled, battling his own mind for control, still nursing a decades-long yearning he thought he’d buried at the bottom of a ravine. Searching for a sense of purpose. Seeking another war.

Bucky shrugged. “I guess I’m still working on it.”

Wanda smiled at him from the shadows.

Sam motioned for the technicians to unfasten Bucky from the restraints. “Come on. I’ve got something to show you, Barnes.”

 

*

 

Bucky settled uneasily onto the couch in his suite as Sam punched a few buttons on the vidscreen controls. “Another message from Steve?”

Sam tried to keep his face blank, but Bucky noticed the ripple in his jaw. Like he was holding something back. Bucky’s nervous system spiked at that. What didn’t Sam want him to know?

“Nothing new from Steve. Maybe tomorrow, though.” Sam’s smile didn’t touch his eyes.

“Yeah,” Bucky echoed. “Maybe so.”

Sam turned on the video and an image of President Ellis standing in front of the White House rose garden filled the screen.

“Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes is a hero,” Ellis intoned as camera flashes snapped around him. “A member of the Greatest Generation who stood up to the twin evils of Hitler and Hydra both. A celebrated sniper with the 107th and a member of the Howling Commandos who singlehandedly helped turn the tide of the war against Hydra.”

Bucky’s fingertips felt numb. He couldn’t get enough air into his lungs. This was all wrong. He was no hero—and the president of all people should realize that—

“He was also the longest prisoner of war our nation has ever seen. Nearly seventy-five years of brutal torture, brainwashing, and unspeakable cruelty. In recent weeks, my administration has learned the true extent of what Sergeant Barnes endured, and it is not a fate we would wish on our worst enemy.”

“Stay with me,” Sam whispered. His hand reached out to curl over Bucky’s on the arm of the chair. Bucky flexed his fingers, still tingling, and tried not to feel like he was drowning on dry land.

“Whatever unspeakable horrors Sergeant Barnes was forced to commit as Hydra’s prisoner, he did so against his knowledge and will. And for that, the United States of America grants him a full pardon.”

The flashbulbs sparkled like muzzle fire. Bucky’s muscles locked; his eyes screwed shut. A full pardon. “I don’t deserve this,” he whispered. His voice sounded so tiny and frail to his ears.

“You do deserve this.” As Bucky opened his eyes again, Sam gestured to the screen. “Damn near everyone in the world can see it. I wish you could, too.”

“It is also my great honor to bestow Sergeant Barnes with the Prisoner of War medal for extraordinary valor and endurance in the face of unimaginable suffering.” President Ellis flipped open a box to reveal the medal nestled in velvet.

“No Medal of Honor,” Sam said, “because of all those dirty fucking congressmen in Stark’s pocket. But I wouldn’t take it personally.”

Bucky stared at the screen. What could he possibly say? When he blinked, he saw the faces of his victims and felt the heat leaching from their bodies. Heard their pleas for mercy. When he didn’t distract himself, he heard Hydra’s voice inside his head, compelling him to obey.

But it was ebbing away. The voices were softer now; the shouts were more distant. He no longer felt himself at a constant state of readiness, waiting for an order to snap him to attention.

It was an eerie kind of emptiness, like a question that went unanswered. But he preferred it. It had to be better.

Anything would be better.

“You deserve this,” Sam said. “And so much more.” He grinned sheepishly. “Sorry the rest of us aren’t, uhh . . . exactly welcome around DC right now, or you could go pick them up in person.”

Bucky managed a smile back. “Thank you, Sam. For—for showing me.” He swallowed; his mouth felt cottony. “And for believing me, too.”

Sam clapped him on the shoulder. “Big day tomorrow.” He stood up and turned away so Bucky couldn’t see his face. “Try to get some rest, all right?”

Bucky used his shoulder to wipe the dampness from his cheek. “Yes, sir.”

The ghosts came for him that night, but clung to the shadows, keeping their distance. Waiting. Watching him. Only one dared approach, gaze cast downward, hands shoved in his jacket.

_Hey, Buck._

In his dreams, Bucky reached for him with both hands, but they crumbled away before he could touch him.

_We could still have it all. It’s not too late for us._

But Bucky knew the truth.


	10. One

 

**0001001: One**

 

“Mister Barnes?” The knocking on Bucky’s suite came in measured but forceful bursts. “Your presence is requested before his royal highness, King T’Challa.”

Bucky punched the code to slide open his suite door. No less than twenty armed guards and the unarmed but no less lethal women of the Dora Milaje stared back at him. He blinked, scanning their rigid posture and piercing stares. He finished scrubbing his towel through his hair and draped it around his shoulders. “I’m not sure I’m dressed appropriately for an audience with the king.”

“His highness will not mind.” The Dora Milaje in the lead smiled; it felt distinctly like the cat smiling at the mouse. “Come this way.”

Bucky sighed and tossed the towel back into his suite, then followed the armed escort through the corridors of the medical facility. He knew better than to try to make small talk, so he focused on their surroundings: the sweet tang of antiseptic cleaner in the air, the gleaming stainless steel support beams, the perfectly starched lab coats of the countless doctors and technicians bustling through the corridor. Yet they all scampered away from his entourage.

He wasn’t a prisoner here. That’s what Sam and Steve and King T’Challa kept telling him, over and over, when they’d arrived and he first asked to go under cryo. But it was kind of hard to remember that. Between the guards, the restraints, the locked, secluded “private suite” where they’d sequestered him away in some remote corner of the facility . . .

And could he blame them? Of course not. The soldier was still there, breathing the same air he breathed, pulsing with the same hot blood. If nothing else, his therapy had made that abundantly clear. He could dull his instincts and rip out the triggering phrases, but the soldier would remain inside him, tangled up in him like a lover.

Maybe it was better never to call on the soldier.

But without the soldier, he was half a man. And he was of no use to Steve.

They turned down a corridor and entered as separate wing of the facility. No patients or doctors; instead it looked like some sort of maintenance floor. Bucky’s ribs knitted together as he tried not to let his adrenaline spike. The bare metal walls and fluorescent lights felt too much like too many unmarked bunkers, like all the barren corridors that led to darkness, to cages, to tubes.

The leading guard stopped outside a nondescript door and held her hand out. “Please. Inside.”

Bucky tightened his jaw and pressed the lever on the door to head inside.

King T’Challa crouched over a workbench, a welding mask flipped up on top of his head. Bucky tilted his head to one side, trying to decipher what was spread out on the bench before him. Concentric metal rings . . . no, plates. Metal plating. Designed to lock together . . .

“Mister Barnes!” T’Challa waved a gloved hand in greeting. “Thank you for stopping by. I wanted to show you my latest design.” He waved Bucky over. “Come, come.”

“Latest?” Bucky asked. He glanced back toward the guards before approaching; the lead Dora Milaje gave him the slightest of nods.

“For a new arm for you, friend!” He swept his hand to encompass the parts scattered before him. “I’m working on a few different prototypes, but I wanted to see which you liked best.”

“I didn’t know you were an inventor,” Bucky said, hesitant, as he approached the work table.

A new arm. When Claire had started asking him about it, he should’ve realized he’d have to make a decision sooner rather than later. But it was too much. He was only just accepting that he might be able to live, to function, without Hydra pulling his strings.

Becoming a weapon—fully operational, deadly, as strong as he’d been before—that was another matter entirely.

“Yes, well, not every inventor feels the need to brag on himself on television like some.” T’Challa smirked, eyes dancing with something mischievous. “We are a quiet nation, Wakanda. Prefer to keep to ourselves. But that does not mean we have no ambition, no industry. As I am sure you have realized.”

“Everyone’s been fantastic so far,” Bucky said. “I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me. But . . .” He moistened his lips. “You really don’t have to do this. I mean—I’m not sure I’m ready to—”

“I must confess, given the age of the technology, your original attachment is quite advanced.” T’Challa wheeled his stool over to a separate workbench, where a number of perforated metal plates had been scattered. “Thousands of sensors to transmit sensation to your central nervous system, and the interlocking components—they are very interesting. Someone took great care in crafting it, if not in maintaining it.”

Bucky thrust his shoulders back, trying to keep his pulse even. “Yeah, well, there’s a reason for that.”

“I’m not trying to thrust something radically different on you,” T’Challa continued. “My new design is very similar, but with an improved volume of sensors and more precise movements. However, I was considering a few possible attachments. Much like your friend Clinton and his different arrows. Perhaps you would like a peripheral port? Or an electrical impulse embedded in the palm?”

Bucky ground his teeth together. “I’m not sure I want any of this.”

A crease appeared between T’Challa’s brows.

“The arm made me into something I’m not, okay? It’s how they made me a weapon. How they owned me.” He hadn’t meant to say it, but now that he’d started talking, he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “I’m dangerous with it. The things I can do with it—the things I _have_ done—”

T’Challa raised his hand, gloved palm turned toward Bucky. He was glancing down, as if collecting himself, waiting for Bucky to stop.

Bucky exhaled and bit down on whatever else he was going to say.

“You are exactly as dangerous as you wish to be, or as you don’t wish to be.”

Bucky shook his head and looked away.

T’Challa clicked his tongue. “No. I am serious. Why should you give it that power?” he asked.

“That’s—that’s what it’s always been.” Bucky stared at the tiled floor. “If they hadn’t wanted to turn me into their weapon, they wouldn’t have given it to me in the first place. They would have kept me weak.”

“And you would rather remain weak than be strong, now, for yourself?” T’Challa asked.

Bucky grimaced and didn’t answer.

“Well. If you will indulge me,” he continued, “I would very much like to continue with my designs. There are plenty of others in this facility who might benefit from prosthetic limbs, after all.” T’Challa smiled and reached up for his welding visor. “If you wish to receive one, then let me know. If not, I have no intention of forcing it on you. It remains your choice.”

His choice. Bucky was hearing a lot of that lately. But he still felt ill-equipped to choose.

“Is there anything else I can do for you, Mister Barnes?” T’Challa asked. “Anything else to make your stay comfortable?”

Bucky’s skin was crawling. He felt like he’d been backed up to a cliff by everyone, and they were all waiting, waiting for him to make the choice to jump before they went ahead and threw him over. They kept saying he had a choice. Kept telling him how great he was doing. But didn’t they really mean he was doing what they wanted? Following Sam’s treatment plan, stumbling along the path Steve wanted to coax him into joining the next fight. Only Claire acted like she had no vested interest in what choice he made, but then, he supposed she got paid either way.

Bucky shook his head. “No. I don’t need a damn thing.” He forced his jaw to unclench. “Thank you very much for your hospitality, your highness.”

“Of course.” T’Challa’s brow furrowed once more. “You are welcome to it for as long as you wish.”

Another illusion of choice. Unless he went out fighting with Steve, there was nowhere else for him to go. President Ellis might call him a hero and absolve him of his crimes. But Tony Stark would never let him leave in peace back in the States. No one would—anywhere in the world. Every face he passed would regard him with that sour blend of pity and horror.

Bucky turned and left the workshop.

 

*

 

He stared at himself in the mirror.

Blue eyes stared back, shifting from a cold gray to a sharper ocean chop. Thick stubble carpeted his cheeks and chin. Dark brown locks, dried now, framed his temples. His face was a collection of parts. He knew them, recognized them like one might recognize a famous landmark or a letter in the alphabet. But it wasn’t a person’s face. It was just another thing.

He picked up the electric razor for the thousandth time, then set it back down.

He’d tried, once, to make his face match the one in the museum. Another familiar landmark. Freshly shaved, hair parted and styled in a crew cut. But it had been too much effort to maintain. Everything was too much effort. He worked menial jobs, he jotted down the memories that appeared in his mind like shards of glass. Mostly he remembered to eat, though everything tasted of dust and cinders. Mostly he tried to sleep. Sometimes, though, he didn’t see the point.

He flicked the razor on and let it glide over his chin, the sharp plane of his jaw, his cheeks. Underneath the stubble, he found another stranger. Another landmark half-remembered from a postcard or photograph.

_James Buchanan Barnes._

_Sergeant Barnes. 3255708._

_Bucky._

Blue eyes stared back at him, almost like a dare. He forced himself to smile, and they crinkled. He tilted his head to one side. Listening. Smiling. He could approximate this new man he was supposed to be. Like learning a new fighting stance or a weapons system: slowly, deliberately at first, but then with something approximating instinct, then eventually it would carve its path inside his head. This new Bucky could tangle up with the old, with the soldier, with everything else that made him who he was.

The soldier named Bucky nodded at him, careful but confident. They could do this.

Sam appeared over his shoulder in the mirror and propped himself against the bathroom doorway. “Need any help?”

“Just shaving.” Bucky flicked the razor off.

“Heard you had a little chat with his royal highness.” Sam moved out of the doorframe enough to let him pass, but no more. “Wanna talk about it?”

Bucky shrugged as he strode into his suite. He needed something to do with his hand, so he grabbed an orange from his untouched breakfast tray and began to peel it. No easy task one-handed, but he needed something to pass the time. “He’s designing me a new arm. Not that anyone asked me.”

“You’re in the most technologically advanced nation on the planet, under the personal protection of a man seven thousand times wealthier than Tony Stark.” Sam stared at him. “And we’re supposed to just, what, let you limp around one-armed?”

Bucky’s nails dug into the orange rind and began to tear.

Sam snatched the orange away from him. “Give me that.” He began to peel back the rind, working quickly. “Now listen. I worked at the Veterans’ Affairs office. Congress is constantly bankrupting them, tossing vets out on the streets, denying them the meds they need to function, making them wait years sometimes to be seen. It’s a goddamned disgrace. You know how badly I wish I could bring this kind of pampering to each and every one of my vets?”

“Go ahead. I didn’t ask for this.” Bucky glared at Sam as Sam slapped a handful of orange slices in front of him.

“The fuck you didn’t. You said to wake your ass up the minute we had a way to save you from the triggers planted in your head. We need you and we’re making great progress. Isn’t that what you wanted?” Sam’s dark eyes pierced his own. “Or is that not what you really meant, Barnes? Were you just looking for a way out? A nice, long sleep?”

Bucky turned his head away and fixated on a flock of birds that circled the distant treetops.

“I know how it is to feel depressed. You want to sleep because maybe the world will look different when you wake up. Maybe you’ll _feel_ different. And sometimes it helps a little, but you’re still the same person inside when you laid down. Doesn’t matter whether it’s two hours or twenty years. Sorry, Barnes. This is how it looks on the other side.”

Bucky picked up one of the orange slices. The overwhelming citrus scent flooded his nose—too strong. He winced and set it back down. “You enlisted, right?”

“In the Air Force?” Sam asked. “Yeah. Hasn’t been a draft in a long time. Why?”

“And when Steve—Cap—well, he asked you to help him. Didn’t he?”

Sam snorted. “Well, it’s not like I was gonna say no. But I might have angled my way in. He and Natasha were on the run from Hydra, and I offered my services. We went and fetched my old pararescue suit.”

“And how about dragging my frozen ass out of cryo?” Bucky asked. “Was that the Captain’s orders?”

“Steve might’ve suggested it. But I did volunteer my services. As did Wanda, as did his highness . . . What’s your point, Barnes? That we’ve all had a choice in this, and you don’t?”

Bucky shrugged.

“We’re giving you a choice right fucking now. Don't you see? We get Hydra out of your head, and suddenly your brain is yours again. Steve Rogers is giving you the opportunity of a lifetime on a silver fucking platter. But it’s just that—an _opportunity_. Your choice what battle you want to fight. Is that the real problem, man? You just see the hook in every gift? You can’t fathom that people genuinely want the best for you?” Sam was talking faster, now, though he kept his volume steady. “Or do you not see that sometimes there is no good choice, and the only thing you can control is how you react? Because this not choosing—that’s not an option. That’s giving up.”

“Well, maybe I don’t know what I want,” Bucky said.

Another minor lie. He wanted to be with Steve, fighting side by side like always. But he wanted—god, he _wished_ —there didn’t always have to be a fight to bring them together.

“I signed up for the Air Force. For the experimental Falcon program. Picked my buddy Riley as my flight partner. So yeah, I had control of all those things. But I didn’t ask for him to get shot down in front of me. Didn’t ask to feel like the world was moving at half-speed as I tried to swoop in.” Now Sam’s voice wavered; Bucky’s stomach turned at the sound. “I didn’t fucking ask to lose my best friend.”

Bucky turned to look at him. Sam’s whole body was rigid like a drawn bow. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t ask,” Sam replied.

Shame burned over Bucky’s face. There was a lot he hadn’t asked.

“But you know what I realized? That sometimes, we just don’t get a choice. Someone like you, it might feel like you never do. Someone like me, only a little. But that’s wrong. Our choice isn’t in what we have happen to us.”

“No?” Bucky asked.

Sam shook his head, eyes glistening. “It’s in how we react to the things we can’t control.”

Bucky supposed he’d done a lot of reacting, then. And sometimes, the way he chose to react had been to do nothing at all.

_C’mon, Steve. This isn’t our fight._ Blue eyes brimming with tears, confused, realizing the full weight of what he’d said. But Bucky had slammed the door on every possibility.

_Get me out of here, soldier. Protect me._ Complying when he could have resisted. When he could have broken free. When the others were ready to take control of their fate.

_You know you could go with me, James. Don’t you?_ But he’d said no. And worse, he couldn’t bear to let the memories fade. He did nothing, which made it so much worse.

Every time he’d put his finger on the trigger, he’d pulled it. Every time he’d awoken from the soldier’s icy grip, he’d let himself be pulled back in. Every time Steve looked his way, he’d turned.

“So,” Sam said. “What’s it gonna be today? Do you want to keep going with your deprogramming? Want to at least let poor King T’Challa have his fun building you a new arm? Do you want to hear Captain Rogers out, see if this war is one you want to fight?”

Bucky lifted his head at that. “What do you mean?”

Sam’s teeth clicked together. “Just that—well, if we stay on schedule, you’ll be done by tomorrow. One hundred percent Hydra-free. Time to start thinking about what you want next, isn’t it?”

“Oh. Right.” Bucky’s shoulders sagged. “Of course. No, we should—we should continue.” He forced himself to smile. “I want to be free and clear.”

 

*

 

Wanda couldn’t seem to stop fidgeting in her chair as the technicians continued through their usual routine to strap him in and attach the necessary sensors. She chewed at her thumb, exchanged tense words with Sam, kept staring beyond Bucky’s shoulder toward Claire and her equipment stand. Sam, too, looked sterner than usual, but maybe it had just been their talk. He was used to dredging up Bucky’s bad memories. His own, maybe not so much.

By now, Bucky was conditioned to feel a sort of heightened awareness rushing through him when he nestled into this gurney. Whatever was going to come next, he knew it would hurt. It would wring him out. But he also knew the relief that awaited him on the other side.

_Two more._ He steeled himself against the thin cushion. He could endure two more.

It was whatever came after, now, that he most feared.

“All right, buddy. You good?” Sam asked.

Bucky formed a thumbs up, though he couldn’t angle his wrist upward because of the restraints, so it was more of a thumbs straight out. That got a weak smile out of Wanda.

Sam paged through the journal and let out a deep breath. “ _Ah-deen._ ”

_One._

“ _Ah-deen._ Barnes, talk to me about _ah-deen_.”

Bucky’s teeth were chattering. One was the loneliness of the sniper’s perch and the silent, stoic hours spent waiting for the next command. One was control—it was Hydra placing his finger on the trigger and his blade against a throat—One was—One was how he—

The red net of Wanda’s spell slipped into his thoughts, but it felt late, far too late, and he was tangled in the red and the darkness both. Two men in one. Two orders, conflicting.

One was the only choice left to make.

 

*

 

From the minute Hydra created him, they’d been trying to replace him.

Maybe not entirely—not all at once—but they were always striving, always wanting to achieve the next pinnacle in human evolution and compliance. They drew his blood constantly, just before and after another freeze, and ran him through batteries on the regular. Assessing organ function, reaction time, blood oxidation, every possible thing that they could quantify. To monitor, yes, but more importantly, to replicate.

They sent him to Department X and the Red Room. Bade him turn the women there into machines, or as close as they could come. Over and over, he ran them through drills, never tiring or longing for a break. He had no sense of weariness. No boredom. He did what he was told. The girls would swarm him, overwhelm him sometimes, do their best to break them.

Occasionally, they would succeed.

Those were the ones marked down as candidates. She’d been on that list, her red hair and her vicious grin and her way of slipping out of everything, bouncing back from anything they threw her way. When she cried, she ordered him to forget it, not to see it, and he did as he was told.

He tried. He always tried to do as he was told.

Other girls envied his position. The prestigious missions they sent him on. As if his fate was some sort of prize they could win, something they could take from him. But his handlers indulged their ambition—used it as a weapon against him.

And then there was the serum that resurfaced.

A whole squadron of winter soldiers, culled from their master list of potentials. Why use just one? Five could topple nations. Five could take Hydra from the long game to the checkmate they sought. He fought them, he trained them, he fell under their vicious blows. For they had what he lacked: conviction.

He was mindless obedience. They were calculated hunger. He never once asked for more. But they demanded.

Only the Soviet Union’s fall disrupted their plans and put the program on ice. He was plucked out of Siberia and sent to yet another bunker, yet another handler, yet another of Hydra’s heads.

_You’ve shaped a century. And we need you to do it_

_one_

_more_

_time_

The Insight project: the next evolution in decommissioning the soldier. An assassin, quietly stalking a single target, was pointless when satellites could pinpoint a target and slaughter them in an instant. Naturally he’d known none of this at the time, only pieced it together after the fact—after he was free.

And if he hadn’t gotten free, then what was Hydra’s plan for him? What use did soldiers have with no more war?

 

*

 

One.

One soldier high on a cliff as an escort drove through the pass. A woman in black shielding her scientist, as if she thought it might stop him. As if her presence meant anything to him.

_James, please_

The soft Odessa sunlight glinted off the sea but he lowered his tactical shades and threaded the shot through his scope. Straight through her hip.

One.

The smoke clearing as he strode forward, grenade launcher in hand. Bystanders were irrelevant. Attention was pointless. He would kill and kill and kill again, he would carve a swath of destruction, until his target was dead. If he died in the process, so be it. Only the mission mattered. He was just one body. He was just the next bullet. He was just another head of the beast.

One.

One face haunting at him, around the ice-sharp edges of cryosleep. One face, one safe place where he could bundle up his longing, his daybreak, his home. One face. One man. Pleading, screaming his name. Watching him fall—before the ice enveloped him again and all was still.

He was one soldier.

He needed his army.

His army didn’t need him.

 

*

 

“ _Ah-deen._ ”

Bucky’s eyelids felt so heavy as he tried to open them again. Wanda and Sam were there, but their gaze was beyond him. Over his shoulder. Bucky tried to turn his head behind him, but it was futile. He was bound in place.

“ _Ah-deen._ ”

“I’m good,” Bucky muttered. “I’m—I’m good.”

Sam stared behind him again. What was the problem? Was Claire warning them about something? The soft bleats of the monitor sounded within normal range.

“Yeah. Okay, then.” Sam closed the notebook. “Let’s, uh, get you down and—”

“Wait.”

Bucky’s blood turned frosty. He clenched a fist at that voice. That commander’s voice, the one that snapped him to attention as surely as any handler’s and opened up a wound in his chest besides.

The voice he wanted to bury himself in.

A voice that made him want to die.

“No.” Bucky tried to reach for the clasp on the restraint holding his arm in place. He hated Steve and he loved him, but he couldn’t face him now. Couldn’t let him sit in on these sessions, see all the contents of his fucked-up head laid bare—

“Buck. Wait, please.”

“Get me out of here.” Bucky thrust his shoulder forward, trying to wrestle free of the restraint. He could tear it—he was sure he could. He hadn’t had the will before. But now he did. “Please. Get me out—”

“Bucky.”

Steve rounded the gurney and stood before him. Just jeans and a t-shirt, like he was any other man. But he wasn’t. He was god and legend and myth, and the look he gave Bucky, wounded and scolding all at once, scraped like sandpaper.

“How long have you been listening?” Bucky snarled.

Steve’s shoulders fell. The long triangle of his shoulders and neck, his jaw, his tense mouth—any other time, Bucky might have been spellbound.

For seventy years, he’d been spellbound.

Now, he wanted to get away.

“Let. Me. Out.”

The technicians swarmed around him, and Bucky glowered, trying to look anywhere but at Steve. He wasn’t ready. He couldn’t tell Steve what he felt. Couldn’t make the choice Steve had come to demand he make.

He couldn’t do this, oh, god, he couldn’t do this—he couldn’t be someone else’s weapon, someone else’s machine, and Steve was worst of all because he’d do it willingly, he’d let Steve use him for any purpose, for any war, he’d let Steve make a monster of him all over again and hollow him out until there was nothing left—

“Bucky, please. Let me explain—”

The minute the restraints snapped open, Bucky fell away from the gurney.

He gave Steve one last look. His whole body—what was left of it—felt cocked like a loaded gun.

Then he turned and stormed away.


	11. Freight Car

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> YES, there is one more chapter after this one!
> 
> Thank you all so, so much for staying with me through this story. I <3 every single one of you, seriously. There's one more chapter on the way, and then I've already got big plans for my next adventure with these chumps. So stay tuned!
> 
> Follow me on tumblr: starandshield.tumblr.com

**0001010: Freight Car**

 

Bucky’s whole body was buzzing as he carved down the corridor. The Wakandan armed guards were scurrying to keep up with him, fanning out around him, but he didn’t care. He was used to it. This was all he was good for: someone else’s tool, barely contained, his privacy and his feelings always secondary to what he could do for someone.

But he also knew that, if Steve would only ask him, a part of him would yearn to be the trigger on his gun.

He punched the code to enter his suite and let the door slam shut behind him. Silence. Even the mechanical hum of air conditioning, plumbing, electricity was muffled in here. He hated silence. Thick, pressing against his skin, leaving an empty space all around him that his thoughts were only too happy to fill. In the silence, he was never alone.

Steve was here because he wanted answers. Could he break free of his conditioning without losing what made him useful, deadly, an asset? Was he still the same James Barnes who’d shipped out for England that hot July day? Would he still follow Steve blindly?—Adoringly. Did he still define his life around how useful it was to Steve’s?

And the truth was . . . Bucky didn’t know.

He picked up the controller for the vidscreen on the wall, and the bright jewel of Wakandan daylight turned to smoke. His access was restricted: he could only view the two messages from Steve, then Natasha’s and Sam’s news clips about #OpWintersHeart. _Stay with me,_ Steve had said. But what he feared Steve really meant was _Fight with me._

They said he’d been forgiven. Pardoned by the United States for all the horrors he’d done. But it didn’t wipe him clean. It couldn’t erase whatever might come next. He’d never be the man he was, free and hopeful and ready to take on anyone if it meant keeping his world—his Steve—safe.

The man who’d loved Steve Rogers.

How could Steve just stand there, listening to him confess to everything he’d ever thought and done? Bucky sank down into the armchair. Hydra had used every good thought he’d ever had against him—as well as plenty of the bad. So many of them tied back to Steve. Even if Steve had only tugged on the one thread, the one they’d processed today, eventually that thread would lead him to the rest. It was all tangled up inside him, bound up with Bucky and the soldier: his love for Steve.

It had hurt Steve once. He couldn’t let it hurt him again.

That was it, then. To follow Captain America into whatever war came next was to carry this hurtful thing inside of him—and this one, he couldn’t deprogram. Why he didn’t ask for a new prosthesis. Why he hadn’t agreed to join them in their next war. He was still capable of too much harm.

Bucky curled into the corner of the chair and stared at the vidscreen. The video was frozen on the view of Steve switching the camera off. _Stay with me this time,_ Steve had said.

But he’d only just gotten a glimpse of what that might mean, for Bucky to stay. He couldn’t let him see the rest.

 

*

 

The knock came after dinner, like he knew it would.

Bucky shoved his half-eaten meal away, approached the door, and pressed his hand against it. Steve knew—he had to know, now, if he’d seen any of the memories and thoughts they’d been sifting through. Maybe he knew before that. Sam had said their sessions were confidential, but Sam’s loyalties lay with Steve, not him. There was no deluding himself about that.

“Hey, Buck. It’s me.”

Bucky exhaled slowly.

“I know you’re upset with me. And you’re right—I shouldn’t have barged in without your permission. That’s on me, Buck. But I’d really like . . .” Steve sighed. Bucky imagined the face he was making now, his eyes dark with seriousness, his face long. “I just wanted to see you.”

Bucky’s hand was shaking, he realized. He opened his mouth to answer, but it was too dry. So instead he flicked the door open and strode away, arm wrapped around his torso, body tense.

Steve’s footfalls brushed against the carpet and he swung the door shut. Slowly, Bucky turned to face him. The first time he’d seen Steve after seventy years—truly seen him, without the soldier’s haze—had been back in Bucharest. He’d been in uniform, his whole body taut as a bowstring and ready to act. Now, he was slouched forward, hands in pockets, one side of his mouth quirked into a frown.

And he was still every bit as gorgeous, as honest, as real as he’d been seventy years past. It stung to look at him; it burned like sunrise. He never could think straight around Steve; he’d only ever wanted to throw himself into Steve’s causes, his battles, his joys. The tug in his stomach warned him how easily he’d throw himself into it once more.

He had to stay grounded. He couldn’t make his choice like this. He needed more time.

“You weren’t there,” Bucky said finally. “When they woke me up.” He could almost taste the cottony cold of cryo again, thinking about it. Steve’s had been the last face he’d seen when he’d gone in. To wake up, seemingly moments later, surrounded by strangers—no wonder he’d been so disoriented.

Steve’s chest lifted and he tipped his head back. “I’m sorry.”

“You woke me up because you needed my help. Not because you had a solution—because you needed my help.” Bucky narrowed his eyes. “How am I supposed to feel about that?”

“I should have done it before,” Steve said. “But it’s not what you wanted.”

No. It hadn’t been. Bucky grimaced. He’d begged to go under once more, put on a brave face about it, but really he’d been running from the soldier. Pretending the soldier wasn’t inside of him, twisted around him like vines.

“I thought maybe, maybe we could find the perfect solution for you. Enough to make you realize that you didn’t need to run.” Steve shook his head. “And you don’t. You’re making wonderful progress. You’re almost there.”

“Almost ready to go to war again. Isn’t that right?” Bucky asked.

Steve looked down, blond strands tumbling across his forehead. Even with his temper rising, Bucky felt the urge to brush them back into place.

“I don’t know what I want anymore. Everyone’s making all these assumptions around me, and I know they’re just trying to help, but it feels like . . .” _Rusted._ Bucky tightened his jaw. “It feels like another cage.”

Steve’s face fell further at that.

There was a good five feet or more between them, and Bucky longed to cross that distance. No—he had to think clearly. His fingers dug into his side, arm still wrapped protectively around himself.

“I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do. You deserve to choose, Buck. You deserve to—” Steve stepped closer; he paused, hand half-raised toward Bucky’s shoulder, and pulled it back. “You deserve happiness. More than anyone I know.”

Bucky pulled his shoulder, the amputated one, back. “I don’t know if that’s possible for me.”

It was the truth. Heavy as lead between them, and just as cold. Being with Steve made him happy. But being with Steve made him a weapon once more. A paradox he couldn’t get past. And true, he’d be in control of himself this time, but it was also true he’d be forever Steve’s shadow when he wanted to be—to be _his_.

“Is it true what you said?” Steve asked. “In your session. That you—” His eyes wrenched shut. “You saw my face, sometimes, when you were asleep.”

Bucky bit the inside of his cheek and nodded. There was no use lying.

Steve stood up taller, as if he were primed for action. “Did they use you against me?”

He nodded again. _More than you’ll ever know._

“I’m so sorry.” A tremor appeared along his jaw. “Bucky, I wish I could have stopped it. If I’d had any idea—”

“Please. You put yourself in the damn Arctic for seventy years.” Bucky forced himself to smile. “I think you’re off the hook for this.”

Steve laughed to himself and shrugged, self-effacing. “What was it you always said about me? I didn’t carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. I just . . .”

“You just carried half of it,” Bucky said. “While you fought the other half.”

Steve laughed again, and the smile on Bucky’s face softened. It felt like reading from an old script, but there was comfort in it.

Too much comfort.

“I don’t know if I can do what you’re asking,” Bucky said. “And I sure as hell don’t know if it’ll make me happy.”

Steve pressed his lips into a thin line. When they rolled back into place, they were flushed, pink as roses. Bucky swallowed and glanced away.

“What would?”

 _You._ His teeth were chattering. _You and me, back before any of this happened. Brothers in arms, side by side, a someday-maybe tucked in my back pocket like a lucky charm._ Maybe there was a timeline like that in that gem he’d found. Or maybe it was too impossible, too much to ask of Steve in any world.

“I used to think maybe I’d been put on this earth to keep your scrawny ass out of trouble,” Bucky said instead. He slipped into his old persona easily, like slipping on a mask. “But I guess it’s way too late for that.”

Steve smiled again, eyes glittering. “But does it make you happy?”

“It used to.” Bucky winced. It used to be enough. There was a lot that was simpler back then.

Steve flinched too. “You don’t have to decide right now,” he said, after a pause. “I’m not—I don’t want to rush you. But the option is there, if you want it.”

Bucky nodded, and uncurled his fingers from his hip.

“I’m not saying it’d be easy. Sam and Wanda and I aren’t exactly welcome faces in some parts of the world, same as you.”

“Yeah, well, when did you ever like doing things the easy way?” Bucky asked.

Steve’s gaze found his, for the first time that day, Bucky thought. It unfolded something inside him, something bladed and dangerous. He was tired, so tired, of fighting, of running, of his only choices being bad and worse. Yet loving Steve felt like the worst choice of all.

He knew precisely how Hydra had used it against him.

And now Steve was here. He’d want to hear it all.

Steve closed the distance between them and pulled Bucky into an embrace. Bucky tensed, shocked. Frozen. No, no, he couldn’t be this close, he couldn’t lose that sliver of control he’d carved out for himself—

But his arm found Steve’s waist and Steve’s chin slid over his shoulder and if he turned his head, really turned it, then maybe his lips could brush against those sharpened cheeks and then—

“I’ve missed you,” Steve said, speaking into Bucky’s shoulder. His lips brushed against the thin fabric of Bucky’s tank top and spilled onto the edges of his skin. “I don’t want to do this without you.”

_Freight car_

_Freight car_

Tears blurred the edges of Bucky’s vision. He dug his fingers into Steve’s back, into the thick cords of muscles, and tried to hang on to the moment. To feel Steve’s warmth, to draw it into him, the steady rise and fall of his chest . . .

_Soldier?_

Bucky squeezed tighter but then let go.

_Soldier, it’s time._

And then Steve released him and stepped back, still clasping his shoulders. “Sorry. It’s just . . . been too long.” He laughed and glanced away.

_You must forget him, soldier._

The fields of white, the stinging blur of ice and snow. _Soldier, he has failed you. Abandoned you once more._

“It’s—it’s fine.” Bucky blinked, trying to clear the images away. “I, uh—maybe should get some sleep.”

“Right. Of course.” Steve released him and stepped back. “Rest up for the last session tomorrow.”

_Soldier. Do you see what he did? How he betrayed you? Don’t you know you are alone?_

Terror sank its fangs into Bucky’s spine. So many words, cramming into his head, determined to devour every last good thought of Steve. How he broke. How he still could break, again and again. He need space, he needed time to think, and around Steve, there was no thought, only this desire to love him and this compulsion to forget—

“I could . . . I could sleep here, you know.” Steve gestured to the couch. “They told me you have nightmares sometimes. If it’d make you feel better . . .”

 _Yes. Yes._ Bucky felt tense as a fist, unbalanced by how badly he wanted to say yes. But he needed a clear head, he needed space to decide.

“That’s . . . that’s okay.”

Steve’s shoulders sagged, but he nodded; smiled breezily. “All right. See you in the morning, then.”

Bucky reached out and cupped his palm against Steve’s cheek. His thumb traced the sculpted curve of Steve’s brow; short blonde hair tickled his fingers. Steve closed his eyes and leaned into his hand. Fleeting. And then he turned his head away.

“I’m glad you didn’t get yourself killed while I was asleep,” Bucky said, forcing another grin. Mask firmly sliding into place once more. Banter was always easier between them, deflecting seriousness as surely as Steve’s shield.

Steve shrugged, sheepish, as he took a step back. “There’s always tomorrow.”

And then he was gone.

 

*

 

No ghosts of his victims that night. Only a voice, a question, growing more and more urgent. It pinned him in place like the restraints they made him wear and sent electricity spidering through his thoughts.

_Soldier, are you ready?_

Sometimes the voice was his handler’s. Karpov’s or the ones who came before.

Sometimes, the voice was Steve’s.

 

*

 

“Bucky? Are you ready?”

Bucky cracked one eye open to find Steve at his bedside in workout gear, bouncing eagerly on his toes. He groaned and dragged himself to sitting. Everything ached with the oddness he’d feel after an unknown mission: where had he gone, who had he hurt? Only the burn in his muscles knew. But he was safe from himself here—the dozens of armed guards made sure of that.

“Come on. I heard your fitness room’s got a great view of the sunrise.”

“Jesus. Let me wake up first.” Bucky reached for the control panel and turned the windows from solid black to partial opacity. Then groaned as the morning sun struck him. Still way too bright.

Steve tossed Bucky’s running shoes to him. “The Velcro’s a nice touch.”

Bucky gave him a _look_ and wiggled his sole hand at Steve. “I do what I can.” He shoved his feet into the sneakers and tugged the Velcro into place. “Tell you what, why don’t you update me on the current . . . uh . . . situation while we work out?”

Steve’s eyes sparkled with sunlight. “Deal.”

He held his hand out to Bucky. Squaring his jaw, Bucky gripped it tight and let Steve pull him to his feet. They stood chest to chest for a moment, silent, before Bucky gave him a light shove with his shoulder and brushed past.

After a quick warmup on the treadmill, they took turns spotting each other on the free weights while Steve gave his report. “The world went boom . . . but then it didn’t. This Strange guy was able to backtrack time, or split it off to another universe, or—or something. We’re still sorting out the specifics.”

Bucky grunted as he racked the weight. “Sam said something about a gem.”

“Yeah. Funnily enough, it looks similar to ones we’ve seen before. The one that powered Loki’s staff, for instance. Uhh . . . Loki. Thor’s brother. Wait, you haven’t met him either.” Steve rubbed his jaw. “Asgardian god, big hammer, great hair.”

“Wouldn’t be much of a god otherwise, huh?” Bucky sat up, wiped down the bench, and beckoned for Steve to take his turn. “Gods and time gems. Anything else weird I should know about?”

“Oh, the usual. Stark made an omnipotent robot that tried to kill everyone—not sure if you caught the news on that one.” Steve cranked through his reps with flawless efficiency. “And then there was the aliens . . . Actually, that reminds me. I haven’t had a chance to strategize with Sam about this yet, but . . . we picked up the strangest signal a couple days ago.”

“From aliens?” Bucky asked. “Man, the future is weird.”

“I think from aliens. But they said they knew who’d sent the Chitauri after us and why.” Steve sat up and crossed his arms over his knee. “And they spoke English. Err, kind of. Called themselves the Guardians.”

“Never heard of them,” Bucky said.

“Well, they seemed to know all about us and what’s been happening with the Avengers. I think they called Tony Stark a ‘dickwheeze’?” Steve waggled his eyebrows. “Anyway. Probably a good lead to track down.”

“The gems seem to be at the center of a lot of this,” Bucky said. “If we made a list of the ones we know about, what they do, then we can . . .”

Steve was leaning forward, that wry half-smile on his face. Bucky stopped. God, it was too fucking easy to fall into this pattern with Steve all over again. Like they were still huddled around a map in the SSR base, plotting their next attack on Hydra. Destroy this ammunitions depot, then this weapons factory, then cripple this transit route, and then, and then, and then—

Running head-first toward that brick wall when the war would end and they’d go home, two soldiers, back to their lives. Lives where they’d grow apart, or maybe be pulled apart, while every rope that bound them aged and frayed.

“It just . . . seems like a good place for you to start, maybe. You and Sam.” Bucky took a deep breath.

Steve nodded, looking down at his hands for a moment before he turned back to Bucky. “And you?”

“Don’t ask me that yet.”

Steve’s mouth twitched with a frown. Bucky forced himself to step away and busy himself with a round of bicep curls. He couldn’t do it again.

“Buck . . .”

Bucky closed his eyes. Counted louder in his head.

“I butted into your session yesterday and I shouldn’t have. Not without your permission. I’m sorry for that.”

Bucky kept counting.

“So today I’ll ask you. Could I be there?”

Bucky slammed the weight back into its stand and looked back at him. “Would it stop you if I said no?”

“I just want to make sure you’re all right. That you’re getting the help I promised you when I had them wake you up.” Steve’s golden eyelashes grazed against his cheeks. “But if you don’t want me there . . .”

“I just don’t think you’ll like what I have to say.”

Steve studied him, mouth tight. “Maybe I deserve it. If you’re angry with me, if you hate me . . . Well, maybe you’re right to.”

“That’s part of it.” Bucky swallowed; a vein was twitching at his throat. “But it isn’t just that.”

Steve was still watching him. Expectant.

“They know, all right? About when we—when we were kids. Sam and Wanda know.”

Steve’s brow creased. “Wait, what are you talking about? What about when we were kids?”

“When we were seventeen.” Bucky wrapped his arm around himself again. “And you wanted to stop that bully from beating up those—those guys and . . . I said it wasn’t our fight.”

Steve blinked a few times. Like the memory was barely even there for him. Maybe it would have faded from Bucky’s thoughts, too, if Hydra hadn’t used it against him. Maybe.

But somehow he didn’t think so.

“Right.” Slowly, a smile dawned on Steve’s face. “When you kissed me, you mean.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows. “I think you mean when _you_ kissed _me_.”

“If that’s how you want to remember it.” Steve was still smiling, but softer now. “Don’t worry about it. Times are different, Buck.” But he was speaking slower. Picking through his words like a minefield. “Sam and Wanda . . . I mean, anyone worth having on our team shouldn’t be bothered by it. A couple of guys figuring themselves out.”

Bucky’s mouth worked, but he couldn’t find the right thing to say. _I was wrong, back then. I loved you. I love you still._ It was too impossible to explain.

Instead he asked, “And did you?” His lip quivered. “Figure yourself out, I mean.”

Steve stood up and grabbed his towel. “Sure did!” He patted Bucky on the arm. “You’re not gonna faze me, Buck. So how about it? Let me help.” His gaze softened. “Please.”

It had been an answer and not anything like the answer he’d sought.

_I love you, Steve._

_And Hydra made that the cruelest knife of all._

 “Okay.”

 

*

 

Steve chatted so easily with Claire as the technicians settled him onto the gurney. Monitors. Pulse oximeters. If all went well, he’d be doing this for the last time. And then . . .

“You can do this,” Sam said softly. “You’re almost free.”

Free to sign up for yet another war, if he chose. But at least it’d be his choice.

“Don’t worry about Steve,” Wanda said. “He only wants the best for you. And he’s strong.” She smirked. “He can take it.”

“You know what’s coming,” Bucky said to Wanda, under his breath.

She bit her lower lip and nodded. “I have a guess.”

“I don’t want him to have this weight.”

Wanda glanced away. “Trust me. He’ll take the burden no matter what. Might as well let him, yes?”

Bucky nodded and settled his head back against the cushions as Sam and Wanda and Steve took their seats.

“And the magic phrase for today . . .” Sam cleared his throat. ‘Freight car.’ _Gruzovoy vagon_. Settle in and walk me through what you feel when you hear it. _Gruzovoy vagon._ ”

The nerve endings danced along Bucky’s arm, his legs, his chest. _Freight car._ He smelled iron, he smelled gunpowder, he smelled cold. The red strands of Wanda’s magic danced through the images and pulled them closer to him—made them impossible to ignore. _Freight car._

_*_

 

Another chair. Another set of restraints.

“Tell me, soldier. Tell me about your fall.”

 _We’d gotten report that Schmidt’s top scientist—_ A grimace.— _That_ you _were aboard a supply train winding through the Alps._

“And your friend, your darling Steve—it was his idea, yes? To rappel onto the train. Such a dangerous way to treat you.”

_We’d made it through far worse._

The metal arm hung limp at his side. After the procedure, after his—outburst—they’d deactivated it. Waiting for something. Waiting for him to comply. He wanted to close his eyes, about the only part of him he could move. But it wouldn’t do any good. Zola would never stop.

“You threw yourself in front of him. Didn’t you? Like you always did. Like a dutiful soldier. A slavering _dog._ ” Zola’s spittle flecked across his face. “Always protecting him. But he ignored it like he always did, never saw the need to ask him or you why.”

_We were soldiers._

“No. _Now_ you are a soldier. _Now_ you will serve a righteous cause.”

He’d heard stories, once, about prisoners of war who’d swallowed their own tongues to end the pain. But he already knew it didn’t work. He’d tried long ago, back when the hose and the electric current had been the worst they knew to do.

Then they found out about Steve.

“You protected him, and he let you die for it. Let you fall into the abyss. He could have found you—far easier than my men did, if we are frank with one another.” A smile slick with slime. “He had the resources, the cunning to do it.”

 _He didn’t know what you’d done to me_.

A slap, crisp and bright as daylight. “He should have known. Should have seen the signs. Did he fear it? A challenger, a man just as strong as he? In truth, soldier, you are better. Where he was strong-headed, you are loyal. Where he took risks, you only obey. And you _will_ obey.”

_I’m not your soldier. My name is James—_

Another slap. “You are the soldier. And your captain is no more.”

He twitched against the restraints.

“Dead. A tragic crash in the Arctic. A great loss for America. A great win for us.”

_You’re lying._

“Why should I? The rest of the world has no answer to Hydra, now. No answer to the soldier you are becoming. Who are you, soldier?”

_My—my name—_

“Another useless soldier in the faceless army that fought Captain America’s war. You did the work and he took the glory. You loved him—loved!—and he treated you as a brother. A comrade in arms.”

_Don’t talk to me about Steve._

“Am I wrong, soldier? You carved his name on your heart and he left you to die.”

Glimpses of Steve’s smile, of the cascading way he laughed. The way he had of always finding a solution, no matter how much he had to swallow his pride. He stood up for everyone but himself. But when it came to—when it came to—

When it came to the soldier—

Had he ever asked for anything more, ever said that he returned his love—

Had he come for him that awful night, wind so cold it burned, blood melting through the snow, his body mangled but refusing to let him die, the only name on his lips like a prayer, a curse, a desperate cry—

“He never loved you, soldier.”

No retort. No fight.

“Not like you loved him. Never could. And now he is gone. Forget him. You are the world’s greatest soldier, now. You needn’t protect this ungrateful man any longer. But we—we will give you everything.”

_I’m not a soldier._

“You are.” Teeth so sharp. “And you will be.”

 

*

 

Weeks bled into months bled into an endless cycle. Breaking him down. He forgot the man in the red, white, and blue suit. The name carved on his heart scabbed over. The arm moved, erratic at first, but with growing finesse. He became a soldier because it was the easiest path. Because there was no other path left.

_There is nothing more for you than this._

_Easier to obey._

_He won’t come back for you._

The soldier agreed.

 

*

 

“Good morning, soldier.” The man in the uniform set aside a red notebook and turned his attention to him. “It is time for your first mission.”

The soldier looked at him.

“There is a man in the control tower. An enemy of ours.”

 _Ours._ The word rang inside him, thrumming.

“He has locked himself inside the tower. You are to make your way inside and eliminate him.”

“Eliminate?” the soldier asked.

“Yes. We have no need to question him.” His handler stepped aside. “Make it hurt.”

His first mission. It might as well have been his thousandth, for all he could recall. But he had the strength, the training, the finesse to pull it off.

Grappling hook. The climb was no challenge for him. Neither was the double-steel door into the tower, when he kicked in its weak spot. The door fell open before him.

“Stop!”

The bullet whizzed over his left shoulder, where his head had been moments before. A good shot, then, but he was better.

“I’ll never surrender,” the voice called from inside the tower. “For America!”

Something in the man’s tone rang false, like he was reading from a script, but it made no difference to the soldier. _Make it hurt._ He pulled the long serrated knife from its sheath and spun it until the blade pointed down.

The man flung at him from the shadows, sending them both crashing into the control panel. Wearing some sort of ridiculous uniform—tactical blue but striped with white and red. The soldier’s forearm slammed into the man’s throat and he swung the knife around, aiming for his liver. Instead, it skittered against some kind of reinforced padding.

Hi sidearm, then.

“Bucky, wait! It’s me, Steve!”

The soldier blinked.

“I’m here to rescue you. It’s time to go home.” The man laughed, a hysterical twinge lifting his words. “You’ve been Hydra’s prisoner for ten years, but it’s time to go home!”

The soldier silenced him with a metal fist around the throat.

He pressed him against the wall, left side digging into the man’s body as he unclipped his sidearm and pulled it loose.

“Remember me,” the man pleaded, rasping. “I’m Steve. I love you—and you love me.”

Again the soldier blinked. An itch at the back of his throat.

He pressed the pistol’s barrel underneath the man’s jaw.

“Bucky, please—”

As he pulled the trigger, as the man’s blood splashed across his face, he saw something. A face gleaming gold in the sunset. A laugh, a muffled word called out.

He glimpsed a deep ravine rushing up to meet him.

But it didn’t matter. He raised up off of the wall and let the man’s body fall.

“Congratulations, soldier.” His handler stood in the doorway. “Your training is now complete.”

 

*

 

When the red threads yanked him back to the present, his friends’ expressions ranged from the nauseated to the appalled to the same damned inscrutable face that had haunted him for nearly a century.

“That was it,” Bucky whispered. “That was how they knew they’d broken me for good.”

“Buck—”

“I can’t do it again, Steve.” He pursed his lips. “I can’t ever be that again. Not by choice, not by force. It doesn’t matter.”

“But it wasn’t me. It wasn’t me. When you fought me—the real me—”

Bucky swallowed. “I nearly killed you. I was ready to.”

They stared at one another, gazes crossed, scraping. He’d decided, then. He didn’t want to be anyone’s weapon again.

If that meant surrendering Steve, so be it. He’d loved and lost him before. Just because fate had thrown them together again didn’t mean he couldn’t do it again.

Steve gripped the red notebook, hands trembling. “Were they right?” he whispered.

Bucky shrank down against the restraints. “What?”

Steve’s jaw rippled as he clenched it, as his eyes tightened. “Did you love me?”

Bucky braced himself. “Yes.”

Steve winced, absorbing the word like a blow.

“I loved you. And do still. I’d do anything for you.” He’d been uncorked, and everything was tumbling free. “I’d dive in front of a bullet for you all over again. I’d die for you again. I’d kill for you again. And if I can do that—” Bucky took a breath. “Then maybe I could kill you again.”

“You’re not that man anymore.”

“Of course I am.” Bucky laughed, sour. “And he’s me.”

Steve looked down at the book. “Longing.”

He felt like he’d been slapped. No, he wasn’t better—not if this word could bowl him over still—but no. The images surfaced but sloughed away.

“Rusted.”

“Steve, please—” Sam pleaded.

A cage and an endless stream of abuse washing over him. He shrugged it away.

“Seventeen.”

Those rose-pink lips. Bucky concentrated on them, their shape, even as he read the words he hated.

“Bucky, stay with us,” Wanda whispered.

“Daybreak.”

Natasha’s terror; a fresh set of chains wrapped around his heart. But Natasha was free, he was free, they couldn’t chain him anymore.

“Furnace.”

If Steve couldn’t be there to fight for the little man, then he’d become Steve. And that’s exactly what they wanted. To make a Steve of their own. But he could fight it, he could fight it off. The fire inside him didn’t have to consume him.

“Nine.”

The fighting techniques he’d learned—still tangled up in his nerve endings. But he controlled them now. He chose when to fight.

“Benign.”

Steve’s pure heart, saving him. Not knowing he was poisoned. But he could live with the poison. It had made a home in him, just as Steve had. He was more than his disease.

“Homecoming.”

Steve’s face, calling him back. Steve’s name. Steve’s strength, saving them both.

“One.”

He didn’t have to be alone.

He never had to be alone unless he chose.

“Freight car.”

His hand around Steve’s shoulder, pulling him from the river. Saving him. He could help as well as hurt.

“Soldier.”

_Soldier_

“Are you ready to comply?”

Every eye was on him, burning like cinders against his skin. _Ready to comply ready to comply ready to comply_ dancing on the edge of his teeth. The hunger in him, the smell of blood thick in his nose, the thousands of faces—they crowded around him, clawed at him. Begged for a merciful death. The instinct sang inside him to do it all again.

“No.”

Steve rocked back on his heels. Sam let out his breath in a low whistle. “Steven Fucking Rogers, I swear to god—”

Bucky cleared his throat. “But I’m not ready to decide.”


	12. End of Line

**1111111: End of Line**

 

“And that . . .” Claire eased the needle from the crook of Bucky’s elbow. “Should be the last blood I ever have to draw from you.” She plugged the vial and swiped his skin with a cotton swab. “Usually I give the kids at my hospital an Iron Man sticker or something, but I’m guessing you might not be as impressed.”

Bucky managed a weak laugh. “So no more tests?”

“No more tests.” Claire slotted the vial in her carrying tray and took a step back. “You’re all cleared.”

“For what?”

She pressed her lips together. “For whatever you want.”

As if it were so easy.

Steve had stormed out of the final session without a single word after he’d forced Bucky to go through the sequence once more. Sam apologized profusely, but Bucky barely heard it. All he heard was the hum of his pulse in his ears and the echo of Steve’s voice, reading out those words he hated. All he saw was the way Steve’s eyes had tightened when Bucky admitted his deepest fear: that his love for Steve and his ability to commit awful acts might get all tangled up together.

He could spend his whole life protecting Steve all over again. Losing himself in the act, because it was easier than fighting. It’s how they had broken him, after all. Path of least resistance. Easier to become the soldier. Easier to become Steve’s guard dog but wishing he could be more, could _mean_ more.

“You know . . .” Claire shifted her weight. “I don’t know what you’re planning, or even if you’re in the right place to start planning yet, but if you ever find yourself in Manhattan and need a safe place . . .”

Bucky smiled. “Thank you. Seriously, I appreciate it.” Claire smiled back, warm without being placating. “And thank you for—for everything you’ve done,” he said.

“It was an honor. But please—take care of yourself, all right? I have enough idiot vigilantes showing up half-dead on my doorstep.” She winked, then let herself out of Bucky’s suite.

She didn’t close the door behind her.

Bucky stood up and flexed his arm as he glanced out the door. No more guards. His eyes narrowed as he glanced up and down the corridor. It was mid-morning, the day after his final session, and only the distant sounds of workers in faraway corridors rang through the halls. No one had come to see him the night before, and only Claire had appeared that morning. Now he was getting a better idea of why: he was free.

Completely. Utterly.

The possibilities closed around his throat like a fist.

He staggered down one corridor, the guards’ absence buzzing behind him. No one giving him orders. No one hunting for him. No expectations. Well, he supposed Steve was keeping his word on that front. He only wished it felt more . . . right.

As he turned the corridor, he found himself in some other part of the medical center. Doctors bustled from room to room as self-steering patients on stretchers followed behind. He hung back, not wanting to get in the way, but an assistant approached him with a politely blank smile on her face. “Can I help you find something?”

Bucky swallowed; his mouth was too dry to respond. “I was just . . . looking around, and I . . .”

The assistant leaned toward him. “You’re one of his highness’s guests, yes?” Her smile sharpened. “They’re meeting two floors down in the east wing. I’m sure they won’t mind you’re a little bit late.”

Meeting—that sounded like Steve, all right. Rounding up the troops and figuring out his next attack. Bucky shook his head; his chest felt impossibly tight at the thought of it. “Actually, is there somewhere I can get some fresh air?” He’d been breathing recycled air for—well, for months, now. Maybe if he could just step away, just have a moment to think—

“Of course.” She gestured to a set of glass automatic doors. “That way and to the right.”

Bucky thanked her and followed the path, his mind chattering all the while.

He stepped out onto a porch several stories up that faced a wide square. They weren’t in some remote facility, then—they were in the heart of Wakanda, and the magnificent buildings crowding around the square glittered like crystals in the morning sun. Bucky drew a deep breath and savored the brush of sunshine across his skin; the breeze whispering through his hair. The city hummed with power, with progress, but none of it gnawed at him with the urgency he’d felt most of his life, with the need to fall into line, to obey, to submit.

It was so—clean. A safe enclave away from the world. Maybe it was foolish to even consider leaving it. Surely there was some sort of work he could do for King T’Challa. Low-level security work, maybe, or sweeping floors in one of the labs—he’d survived as a janitor in Vienna for a few weeks, before slipping off to Bucharest—then once he had a grasp on his life, some new sense of purpose, some new cause to fling himself into—

He sagged against the railing. That was the problem. He’d never been content to carry on. Whether it was encouraging Steve and making sure he succeeded as they both found their place in the world, or surviving basic training, or carrying out missions for the 107th or obeying his handlers’ commands—he’d always been an arrow in search of a target. Loyal, yes, like Zola had taunted him for being. But also determined. He needed a leader to follow and their conviction to be the air in his lungs.

And for far too long, it had been Steve.

_“What do you think, Buck?” Steve held up his sketchpad from the other end of the fire escape. “You think it’s good enough for that job at the ad agency?”_

_Bucky stared at his own face on the paper, though unlike any mirror had ever shown him. His eyes cast downward, his mouth caught somewhere between a smile and a frown. The shadows under his eyes—god, it was like Steve had put his very thoughts on the paper. Like he knew just what was inside his head._

_“I dunno. You better try again, just to be sure.” Bucky donned his signature grin and leaned back against the railing, arm propped behind his head. “Want me to strike a pose? They’ll probably start you off drawin’ cheesecake for the stag mags, after all.”_

_Steve’s eyes rounded with horror as Bucky spun around and lay on his back with his legs crossed and propped up against the railing like one of the girlie drawings. “That’s—that’s not—”_

_“Well, you gotta get better somehow, right?” Bucky winked and propped one finger against his mouth, coquettish. “I got no talent of my own. But I’ll be damned if I don’t help you find yours.”_

He headed back inside after a few more silent moments. It wasn’t a promise, he told himself, as he made his way down two floors. Only an option.

He wished it felt like more.

 

*

 

The guards gave him only the briefest of glances before unsealing the conference room and ushering him inside. Steve stood at the front of the room, face partially obscured by a projected viewscreen that displayed a map of some kind. “And . . . and even _if_ we were able to neutralize the security network . . .”

Bucky slipped through the shadows at the back of the room and found an empty chair against the wall. Steve’s eyes tracked his movement as he paused his strategizing. Sam swiveled his chair around to give Bucky a cursory nod, and Wanda curled her fingers in a tiny wave, but none of the others glanced back.

And there _were_ others. Clint Barton, and a Wakandan interpreter at his side, signing Steve’s words. Scott Lang, chewing on the end of a pen. King T’Challa, looking just as at ease in an embroidered tunic and slacks as he’d looked in his oil-stained clothes back in his workshop. And another white man Bucky didn’t recognize, tall and willowy, with needlessly complicated hair and—was that a _cape_?

Sam leaned forward to manipulate the viewscreen and zoomed in on a portion of the map. “I’m telling you, man, I still think it’s a decoy. A distraction to keep us from the real power source.”

Steve pointed a finger at Sam, grinning. “Funny you should say that.” He exited the screen to a main menu and cycled through a handful of messages. “Natasha sent this over a few hours ago.” A video popped up, showing Natasha’s face. “ _If_ we want to trust anything in it . . . but sometimes lies tell you just as much as the truth.”

That had certainly been the truth around Natasha. Bucky drew his knees up under his chin and wrapped his arm around them.

“Hey, Steve. I’m assuming if you’ve gotten this that you made it to Wakanda safe and sound,” Natasha said on the video. “Don’t forget to tell the person the thing I told you to tell them. You _did_ pinky-swear.”

Steve coughed abruptly as Bucky raised one eyebrow.

“We’re headed out on another assignment—more drama in New York, something with the Osborn Corporation? I’m sure you’ll catch it on the news, with all the endless photo ops the UN likes.” She rolled her eyes. “But Stark said that, just in case I had some way to contact you, which he certainly hoped I didn’t—” she smiled wryly—“that I should give you this message.” She leaned forward to punch unseen keys. “Take care of yourself, all right? All of you.”

For a moment, it felt like she was looking straight at Bucky. He glanced down for a moment and took a deep breath. This wasn’t his fight, he told himself over and over. He was just an observer. No Hydra puppetmaster tugging his strings; no commander barking out orders.

Tony Stark’s face filled the screen. Bucky shrank back with a wince.

“You’re sure this is . . . ? Okay.” Tony narrowed his eyes and stared straight ahead. “Listen up, Barnes and Noble.”

Sam and Scott stifled laughs.

“I don’t know what you two and your little island of misfit toys are up to, and frankly, I don’t care. I’m living my best life over here. Hashtag-blessed. In fact, you want a hashtag-fight, ‘winter’s heart’? How about hashtag-Operation World Peace. Mission accomplished on that front, no thanks to—”

“Tony . . .” Natasha’s voice warned from off-screen.

Tony rolled his shoulders back and jerked his chin high. “Anyway. If I were feeling generous, then I might tell you that those signals you’ve been chasing? Totally spoofed.” Tony paused to smirk for a moment. “Oh, what’s that, Captain High Horse? Why yes, I _do_ know all about those signals. I’ve just got bigger fish to fry. And, you know, billions of dollars of high-tech equipment, most of which I built myself, and this little thing called a _UN mandate_ —”

“ _Tony_ ,” Natasha said, more insistently.

He exhaled, nostrils flaring. “Point is, if you’re looking for what I think you’re looking for, you’re gonna want these coordinates instead.” A grid of numbers flashed on the screen. “And you’re going to need the processing power for decoding quantum crypto keys as well as a multi-spectral broadcast array if you want to return the signal. Yes, I have all of those things. No, you can’t borrow them.”

Steve drummed his fingers on the edge of the table.

“I’ll give you three days to track it down, deal with whatever hostiles are guarding it—and there _will_ be hostiles—and send out your response. But after that, it is my moral and legal obligation to report it to the task force. You know. Like a _good_ American.” He fired off a mock-salute. “Stark, out.”

The video blinked out of existence. Clint flicked a wad of paper straight through the space Stark’s face had occupied moments before; Scott folded his arms and leaned back in his conference chair. “Did I mention I _really_ hate that guy?”

Sam tinkered with another screen in front of him, then tossed the data upward so it hovered over the conference table. “Coords check out, though.” He zoomed out. “Looks like an old warehouse on the Black Sea. Shipbuilding site or something, probably from the Soviet era. No emissions like what we’re looking for, but that doesn’t mean much these days.”

“Can you cough up the equipment Stark was talking about?” the caped guy asked.

“We have done little research into quantum cryptography,” T’Challa said. “We prefer something more elegant for our own communications systems. I could construct such a device, but it might take longer than Stark has given us. If he does not mean to lead us into another trap.”

Wanda shook her head. “No. Stark is arrogant. But he is not needlessly cruel.” She pressed her lips together and glanced back at Bucky. “At least, not when he is thinking clearly.”

Bucky swallowed and sat up straight. “I know where to get that gear.”

All heads turned toward him.

Bucky’s teeth were chattering, he realized, as he scanned the faces looking at him. Sam and Wanda, practically straining themselves to look that therapist’s blend of encouraging and patient. Clint and T’Challa, looking more amused than anything. And the stranger and Scott, arms folded and withdrawn.

He settled on Steve, practically beaming, though he tried to contain it, and locked eyes with him.

“Hydra had a considerable storage depot near there, inside the Hoia-Baciu Forest on the Romanian side,” Bucky said. “They made up some stories about aliens and ghosts haunting the forest to keep the locals away. I used it in the ‘80s, when I needed to break into a CIA black site and . . .”

He trailed off as another face surfaced before him. Another restless dead. Hydra might be out of his head, but the memories weren’t. Probably never would. But wasn’t that for the best? To keep every part of himself, every painful memory and failed chance, keep them all together in his mind. Wasn’t it better than trying to cut them out like a tumor? He was the soldier, and the soldier was him.

He could be both. He could be whole.

Bucky cleared his throat. “Anyway, the stuff you need is there.”

“But that was, like, thirty years ago,” Sam said. “There’s no guarantee it’s still there.”

“They probably emptied it out the minute shit hit the fan with SHIELD,” Clint said.

“No, it’s there.” Bucky shrugged. “At least, it was last time I checked it. Two weeks before you crashed my place in Bucharest.”

Steve’s smile crinkled his eyes, and it felt like a shard of glass in Bucky’s heart. “Then congratulations, team. We might actually stand a chance.”

The caped man fiddled with his necklace; Bucky caught sight of the glowing green gem embedded in its design. The time gem Sam and Steve had told him about. Infinite timelines spiraling. Timelines where he never fell from the train. Where he’d never been captured by Hydra in the first place. Somewhere, a world where the war had never happened.

Where he and Steve lived out their lives in Brooklyn. Small lives. Unheroic lives. But a life lived together.

A target to aim for—wasn’t that what he sought? Maybe it was possible in this life, still.

The caped man tilted his head and closed his hand more tightly around the necklace. As if he’d known what Bucky was thinking. Hell, maybe he did. “But are you coming with us, Mister Barnes?”

Bucky shrank back in the chair. “I don’t know.”

 

*

 

“—And we’re coming to you live from Osborn Tower, home of the Osborn Corporation, where there is quite a scene! As you can see, fire and rescue are having a hard time getting into the quarantine zone due to all the gaseous vapors and—the swarm of . . . sand? Thankfully, we have the Avengers on site, joined by New York’s new favorite superhero, calling himself Spider-man—”

Bucky muted the vidscreen. The news broadcast cycled through numerous superbly-positioned camera angles that covered Iron Man and Spider-man’s ascent of the skyscraper to battle whatever new threat they were facing now. He was relieved Steve was working without the world watching. Much safer that way. But then, Steve had never done it for the renown.

Hell, the only person Steve had ever looked to, after doing something spectacular, had been Bucky.

He shut the vidscreen off completely. They’d lifted all the restrictions on his access, but he didn’t care—it was all noise anyway. His suite’s windows turned transparent again, revealing the velvet dark of nightfall over the mountains beyond. If Steve’s team were going to reach their relay station before Stark notified the UN, they’d have to leave tomorrow. And then, depending on the response they received, it’d be off to the next crisis. And the one that that one spawned.

An endless war, because it wasn’t really a war—it was just life, the life Steve had chosen, the one he could have only dreamed of back on that fire escape. He had the power and the strength and the support now to do what he couldn’t do then: fight and protect and avenge. It could never be solved in a single battle, a single war.

The life Steve had chosen. There was no going home when the war was done. It _was_ his home.

And he’d asked Bucky to share it with him.

Oh.

_Oh._

Not delaying the inevitable return to home. No picket fence home in the ’burbs for Steve Rogers. Just life itself.

The realization pressed down on Bucky with the same force as a memory. He was asking Bucky to be his partner in this life, and to make it his life instead of just his reflex. Sure, he’d asked the same of Sam and Wanda and Clint and all the rest, but maybe—maybe that was enough. This wasn’t like the Howling Commandos, where each arm of Hydra they chopped off for good brought them closer to their final farewell. This was— _purpose._ Not a target to be struck, but the course the arrow followed.

But he still needed answers.

Bucky tugged the Velcro straps closed on his sneakers and left the suite.

 

*

 

Steve answered the door to his suite with a toothbrush in his mouth. He held up one finger and beckoned Bucky inside, then disappeared to the bathroom to rinse. Bucky stepped into the foyer and glanced around, taking in the far more richly appointed suite Steve had been given. Deep black wood rafters, furnishings wrapped in bright Wakandan textiles, oversized paintings on the walls, and a hypermodern control panel for anything Steve could possibly need. Bucky hunched his shoulders, feeling painfully out of place. Steve was the hero, the savior, the captain. Bucky was only his shadow.

“Thanks for all your help today,” Steve said, as he strode back into the main room. He wore a white t-shirt and sweatpants, both of which clung stubbornly to his muscles. “We might actually have a chance at beating Stark to this thing.”

Bucky studied him—the strong slope of his shoulders, the faint smile tickling his lips, the pale blush of color on his cheeks and the tightness around his eyes. He’d gotten good, so good, at holding his emotions back. _Never let your soldiers see you bleed,_ he’d once said. But Bucky recognized the same tension crackling in Steve that burned in him. The uncertainty eating away at him like acid.

“Why did you do it?” Bucky whispered. “Why did you read the codewords?”

Steve’s hands fell to his sides. “Because I had to be sure.”

Bucky clenched his jaw. “You don’t trust Sam and Wanda to do their jobs? You don’t trust me to see it through?”

“It’s not about trust. I had to be _sure_ , Buck.”

Bucky tipped his chin down, staring up at Steve.

“The things you were saying . . . that you loved me, that you’d kill for me—”

Bucky realized he’d curled his hand into a fist; he forced his fingers apart. “I meant them, if that’s what you’re asking. And I—I still do.”

“No. It isn’t just that.”

Steve turned from him and strode toward the bank of windows that lined the far wall of his suite. Bucky felt himself straining forward, eager to follow, but stayed still. Watched the corded muscles of Steve’s shoulders shift and strain as he leaned against the glass.

“Stephen Strange’s gem—it showed me things.” Steve cast his gaze down. “Other times. Other things that could have been.”

 _The life we could have had together?_ He wanted to ask it so badly it was a sharp pain in his side.

“In—in some of those worlds, Hydra used you against me,” Steve said.

Bucky managed a feeble smile. “Buddy, I hate to break it to you, but they did that in _this_ world.”

“No. Not in the same way.” Steve drew a slow breath, then turned back to face him, back propped against the glass. “They knew that I loved you. And they used you to exploit that.”

Steve’s words rang through him. Crowded around him, angry and haunting as any of his ghosts. “What are you saying?” Bucky asked, though his voice barely reached his own ears.

“So I had to be sure. That it wasn’t just another of Hydra’s tricks.” His voice hitched, turning watery. “I had to be sure it was really you. That you’d _stay_ you.”

Bucky moved toward him, the world silent as a held breath. His thumb trailed against Steve’s lower lashes, brushing away the tear gathering there. His cheek was so warm and soft—everything Bucky imagined it would be and more. He fought down the million things he wanted to say and stilled his trembling lips.

“It’s me, Steve.” The soldier. The friend. The boy from Brooklyn. The man who loved Steve Rogers. “It’s me.”

Steve settled one hand on Bucky’s hip and smiled. It warmed him like daybreak, full of gold and promise. “I know. Because I love you, too.” Steve swallowed. “And always have.”

His mouth crushed against Steve’s, warm and clean and perfect. Steve’s fingers dug into his hip as he pulled Bucky against him and returned the kiss. Starlight spun behind Bucky’s eyelids as he curled his fingers in Steve’s hair, cradled the back of his head. Their lips parted and moved as one. Everything crumbled away until the only thing Bucky could taste, feel, _think_ was Steve’s lips against his and the fire inside him finally burning free.

Bucky pressed his forehead to Steve’s as he gasped for air. Steve’s lashes fluttered against his nose, and he laughed. “That,” he said breathlessly, “is something I’ve been meaning to do for about eighty years.”

“I guess we’ve got a lot of time to make up for, then.” Steve cupped his face and kissed him again. Slow but hungry—lips venturing down Bucky’s jaw, down his throat, carefully skirting around the angry knots of scar tissue where his flesh joined with metal. Bucky shivered and tightened his grip on Steve’s hair.

“When you—said you’d figured yourself out—” He suppressed another shudder as Steve slipped his hand beneath the hem of his undershirt. “Is this what you meant?”

Steve paused and stood up straight, meeting Bucky’s gaze. “That I’m bisexual?” he asked, with a frankness that made Bucky blush. “Yes.”

Bucky let his fingers trail down Steve’s chest.

“I’ve loved you since we were teens, Buck. It doesn’t take anything away from what I had with Peggy, but—I’ve loved you, and I’ve never stopped. Not when I thought you’d died. Not when I woke up in another lifetime. Not when I saw what they’d done to you—especially not then. And the moment I believed there was a chance, even a chance, that you could be free . . .”

Bucky silenced him with another kiss, pressing him back into the glass. Steve groaned at Bucky’s weight leaning into him, but the sound turned to a laugh as Bucky tugged his shirt up and spread his fingers across the firm ridges of Steve’s stomach. Steve tilted his head back, exposing his perfect neck, and Bucky bit into it like it was the sweetest fruit.

“Come here.” In an instant, Steve had scooped Bucky into his arms, one hand under his knees and the other around his shoulder, and carried him to the bed. “Sam told me to take it easy on you, after all.”

Bucky let himself be nestled into the too-soft mattress. Steve tore his own shirt off overhead and curled around Bucky, at once both hungry and protective. “What exactly did you tell Sam?” Bucky asked—then sucked his breath through his teeth as Steve kissed his stomach.

“Oh, nothing.” Steve glanced up at him through his lashes, grinning wickedly. “He was just warning me as a precautionary measure.”

“Cautious?  That doesn’t sound like the Steve Rogers I know.” _The Steve Rogers I love._ Bucky’s back arched, pressing him against Steve, stoking his hunger anew.

“You’re right. It doesn’t.”

Bucky stared at him. Overwhelmed. Hungry and in love and free and disbelieving all at once. Just one day ago, he’d been reliving the worst of his memories, digging the final bit of Hydra’s shrapnel out of his mind, and now his deepest secret wish was coming true. Steve must have sensed some of this; he came up on his hands and knees and crawled forward, crouching over him, then brushed a strand of dark hair back from Bucky’s face.

“But we can take it slow.” Steve kissed his forehead, his nose, his lips. “We have all the time in the world.”

Bucky pulled him down for another kiss, and this time, didn’t let go. He was never letting go.

 

*

 

Bucky woke up with his arm curled around Steve, his chest to Steve’s back, chin nestled in the crook of his neck. He feathered a kiss against Steve’s jaw until he heard his soft laugh, and Steve turned slowly to face him, nose to nose.

“How’d you sleep? I know they—they weaned you off the medication.”

Bucky blinked, trying to remember his dreams. He wasn’t sure he’d had any. “Actually, I slept great.”

“Good.”

Steve’s eyes lidded. The early morning painted him with a gilded, angelic haze that tugged at Bucky’s heart. But not with yearning—with relief, easing him open and letting him breathe. He traced Steve’s temple and jaw with his fingertip, learning their lines anew.

“Listen . . .” Steve curled in toward him. “I know this doesn’t necessarily change anything. Your—your choice is still yours to make.” He opened his eyes again, searching Bucky’s. “I want you to do what’s going to make you happy.”

“What makes me happy?” Bucky sighed. _You._ “I can’t remember a time in my life when I was happier than when I was protecting your sorry ass.”

Steve arched one eyebrow. “Sorry?”

Bucky trailed his hand down Steve’s spine and gripped his bare ass. “Fine, you’re right. Your _formidable_ derriere. Grade-A all-American beef.”

Steve laughed and pulled him closer. “I’m being serious, Buck. I want you to be happy. No matter what.”

“I’m serious. I’m happiest when I’m with you.” Bucky swallowed. “I thought maybe living my life and being free meant finding myself, my true calling, some shit like that. But the truth is . . . I already found it.”

Steve watched him, eyes soft and deep as the sky.

“I found it when we were kids and you couldn’t stop getting into scraps. When you refused to back down from what was right. When you never, ever gave up. Even when you really should have.” Bucky pressed his lips together. “When you didn’t give up on me.”

“It’s what I do,” Steve said softly. “I don’t know any other way to be.”

“I know you don’t. And I love you for it. I want to do everything I can to help you with it. To protect you. To fight at your side.”

Steve let out a breath he’d been holding; the warm air gusted against Bucky’s chest, and he pressed another kiss to Steve’s cheek.

“You gave up your shield for me,” Bucky said.

Steve glanced down, silent.

“Let me be your shield now.”

Tears brimmed in Steve’s eyes once more. “I can’t lose you again.”

“The thing is, you don’t have to. It doesn’t have to be a choice anymore.” The smile blossomed in Bucky’s chest, all through his body. “Keep fighting your wars. I’ll be there with you.”

Steve laughed faintly. “Till the end of the—”

“Oh, shut up.” Bucky rolled on top of him, and silenced him with another kiss.

 

*

 

“Yo! Barnes and Noble!” Sam’s voice crackled over Steve’s comm on the night stand. “Get some fucking clothes on. If we’re going to move on this thing, it needs to be soon.”

Steve groaned and flicked the comm on. “That isn’t going away anytime soon, is it?”

“Not as long as I have to hear your shit about my bird costume,” Sam said. “Bucky, T’Challa says to come to his workshop now if you’re still interested.”

Bucky glanced at his shoulder and the deactivated stub of metal. “I was kinda getting used to it, actually.” He smiled at Steve. “But I guess I’m not quite as good at deflecting bullets without it.”

“I dunno. I can see the advantage.” Steve finished pulling his sweats on, then turned back to the bed and leaned over Bucky. With one hand, he pinned Bucky’s wrist down and use his other to shove Bucky down onto the mattress. “Makes it easier for me to get away with this.”

“You know you’re still broadcasting,” Sam said sourly.

“Oh, sorry, I’m just an old grandpa and don’t know how technology works.” Steve flicked the comm off and traced his hand down the side of Bucky’s face. “Seriously, though. It’s your choice.”

Bucky sat up. His arm had been a symbol of everything Hydra made him—a weapon, cold and programmed only for one purpose. But he’d found a way to make it more. Make it his own. He could do it again. For Steve, and for himself.

“I’ll do it,” Bucky said.

 

*

 

“I think you’ll find the neural arrays to be virtually identical to your old prosthetic,” T’Challa said, as he fine-tuned the plating. “But there are millions of them now instead of merely thousands. More responsive, more sensitive, and even more powerful, if you wish it.”

Bucky looked at the gleaming metal limb now attached to his body once more. An unwelcome image of Zola darted through his mind, his vile grin and his hateful words, but it was gone as quickly as it came. He’d survived. Hydra had given him their worst, their cruelest, and he’d survived.

“It may take you a few days to adjust to it fully, but by then it should be fully integrated on the old pathways. If you are still having difficulties, then return to me and I will see to it we get it right.”

Bucky frowned. “You aren’t coming with us?”

T’Challa leaned back on his work stool and popped his welding helmet up. “Unfortunately, an issue has come to my attention that only a king can settle. A thief has entered my country—a monster who has crossed Wakanda before.” T’Challa smiled, sharp and pointed. “I do not intend to let him do so again.”

“Anything we can do to help?” Bucky asked.

“No. This is my matter to resolve. Afterward, though, perhaps I can offer more assistance to the captain’s cause.”

“I hope so.” Bucky took a deep breath. “I—I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done. Offering us safe harbor, and giving me—” He swallowed down the lump in his throat. “Well, giving me a chance. I want to repay you somehow. However I can.”

T’Challa stood and smiled down on him. “You can repay me by keeping the captain safe. And the rest of the world besides.” He picked up a slender screwdriver and slotted it behind one of the metal plates. “Are you ready, Barnes?”

Bucky took a deep breath and held it, letting it burn in his lungs. Carefully, he nodded.

T’Challa activated the arm.

Millions of electrical impulse shot through Bucky’s brain at once as the arm crackled to life. He exhaled all at once, momentarily blinded by hot white pain—but it was gone as soon as it had come. Instead, he felt the soft caress of air over his arm and the soft padding where he’d perched it; he heard the comforting whir of gears shifting and plates clicking together as he slowly curled a fist. As much as he’d hated the arm sometimes, it had become a comfort to him. A part of him as surely as the soldier was—not something he could deny.

He was stronger whole.

“Thank you,” he whispered, twisting his forearm from side to side. Shrugging his shoulder. Tapping each of his fingers against his thumb. “Thank you for giving me another chance.”

T’Challa nodded, smiling, as if he knew Bucky didn’t just mean the arm.

 

*

 

“We haven’t met yet. I’m Stephen.” The caped man tilted his head to one side as he regarded Bucky on the tarmac. “Though I sense that name is already taken in your heart.”

“I could call you Strange if you like.”

He laughed. “I suppose that works.”

The gem glinted from where it dangled around Strange’s throat. Steve said he’d seen it—the other times, the other lives they might have lived, or at least a fraction of them. Maybe Steve was right, and it was always the case that Hydra had gotten ahold of him, body and mind. Or maybe there was another life for them.

But it no longer called to Bucky. Whatever road had led him here, he had the sense he was exactly where he was meant to be.

Steve approached and gripped Bucky on his right shoulder. “Last chance to back out.” He glanced toward the quinjet, where Scott and Clint were already prepping for the flight sequence. Strange excused himself to help Wanda and Sam as they wrestled a case of supplies up the boarding ramp.

Bucky reached up with the metal arm and laced his fingers through Steve’s. “No way. I’ve been through way too much for you already, Steve.” He smiled. “You’re not getting rid of me again.”

Steve pulled the metal hand to his lips and kissed it gently. The nerve sensors tickled at the sensation, wonderful and new and alive. “Then let’s go save the world.”

“You go save the world,” Bucky said, “and I’ll save you.”

Steve winked and strode forward toward the ramp. “Just like old times.”

 _No,_ Bucky thought, following him onto the quinjet. _Just like new ones._

He was ready to forge new memories. And as he strapped in next to Steve, surrounded by his friends, by these people who’d believed in him against all odds, who’d dug him out of his grave and refused to leave him behind, he knew he could do just that.

He was free. His own man at last.

And he chose Steve.

 

**THE END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm crying. I didn't want this to end.
> 
> To every single one of you reading this--THANK YOU. Thank you so much for sticking with me on this journey, and for believing in Bucky when he couldn't believe in himself. I appreciate it so much.
> 
> I'm going to take a few weeks off, and then I'm going to be back with a new AU story. It doesn't directly tie to this one, but it does represent one of the possibilities Steve saw when he looked in the time gem. So, not hugely canon-divergent--more of a "what if" scenario. With more Stucky, of course. ;) And I can't wait.
> 
> Thank you again!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Mission in Marrakech](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7883899) by [Bohemienne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bohemienne/pseuds/Bohemienne), [Riakomai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riakomai/pseuds/Riakomai)




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